Reading the reviews of this movie, I cannot help but recall a short comedy clip which I saw somewhere. It featured a modern art gallery, full of well-dressed high-class people, walking around and commenting on various wacky paintings, until the camera pans over to several elderly men surrounding another example of art on another wall. They point at it, comment how surrealistic it is, how the author managed to capture this and that, how perfect and how brilliant it is - until the "painting" begins moving, and drives off, it being just a piece of a soft drink advert pinned to the side of a truck that was parked outside a gallery window.
"Deliberately slow-paced"? I don't mind slow-paced movies, not at all, but watching minute after minute of slow walking and talking about nothing in particular while the important issues remain completely unmentioned, is a bit too much. "Brilliant in its meaning"? _What_ meaning, excuse me? I cannot find any possible interesting explanation of its ending, really - the only two meanings I can see is one horribly shallow, cheap sappy excuse for a romantic sacrifice dressed in an old "meaning of humanity" robe, or a big twist beyond any possible reasoning. The former being surprisingly more likely.
** SPOILERS ** - my quick overview of what, in my opinion, went wrong in the movie.
First of all, who in their right mind sends a single civilian to a space station, when previously a military task force failed in there?
Next, suppose your deceased beloved one materializes next to you. Would your first impulse be to chat a bit and then simply kill that person again (as they're not real anyway), then watch them reappear, and then become emotionally attached to them again? Sounds weird, doesn't it? But that's what Clooney does in there.
This only gets worse in the ending. Clooney sees a vision of his own "clone" (cloone?:) on Earth, and decides to stay on the crash-coursed station. Why? For the sake of his dead wife that wasn't even there? Come on. But if it is so, what does this "Clooney-clone on Earth" stuff mean? It just doesn't make sense at all. The only thing that comes to my mind is "we are all clones created by someone", but I refuse to believe in such a banal idea, which actually doesn't fit in that moment anyway.
** END OF SPOILERS **
So what point the movie is trying to make, remains a mystery to me. "We live only for the ones we love, even when they're dead"? Please. "We only exist when someone remembers us"? Not explored enough. "Everything is just an illusion"?? Puh-leeease...!!
In a nutshell, the biggest problem with this movie was its pride. It presents itself like a piece of deep, meaningful art, giving time to think, to absorb, to conclude... but there is nothing to think of. The message is shallow and undecided, jumping from Harlequin romance to weary existence questions, like a hamburger served on a silver plate. There is nothing new in this movie, except exceptional boredom. It failed as a "cerebral movie", it failed as a SF, it failed as a romance. I'm sorry, but it is simply a bad movie defended only by an old "you don't like it because you don't understand it!" line. Yeah, been there, done that. 2/10.
"Deliberately slow-paced"? I don't mind slow-paced movies, not at all, but watching minute after minute of slow walking and talking about nothing in particular while the important issues remain completely unmentioned, is a bit too much. "Brilliant in its meaning"? _What_ meaning, excuse me? I cannot find any possible interesting explanation of its ending, really - the only two meanings I can see is one horribly shallow, cheap sappy excuse for a romantic sacrifice dressed in an old "meaning of humanity" robe, or a big twist beyond any possible reasoning. The former being surprisingly more likely.
** SPOILERS ** - my quick overview of what, in my opinion, went wrong in the movie.
First of all, who in their right mind sends a single civilian to a space station, when previously a military task force failed in there?
Next, suppose your deceased beloved one materializes next to you. Would your first impulse be to chat a bit and then simply kill that person again (as they're not real anyway), then watch them reappear, and then become emotionally attached to them again? Sounds weird, doesn't it? But that's what Clooney does in there.
This only gets worse in the ending. Clooney sees a vision of his own "clone" (cloone?:) on Earth, and decides to stay on the crash-coursed station. Why? For the sake of his dead wife that wasn't even there? Come on. But if it is so, what does this "Clooney-clone on Earth" stuff mean? It just doesn't make sense at all. The only thing that comes to my mind is "we are all clones created by someone", but I refuse to believe in such a banal idea, which actually doesn't fit in that moment anyway.
** END OF SPOILERS **
So what point the movie is trying to make, remains a mystery to me. "We live only for the ones we love, even when they're dead"? Please. "We only exist when someone remembers us"? Not explored enough. "Everything is just an illusion"?? Puh-leeease...!!
In a nutshell, the biggest problem with this movie was its pride. It presents itself like a piece of deep, meaningful art, giving time to think, to absorb, to conclude... but there is nothing to think of. The message is shallow and undecided, jumping from Harlequin romance to weary existence questions, like a hamburger served on a silver plate. There is nothing new in this movie, except exceptional boredom. It failed as a "cerebral movie", it failed as a SF, it failed as a romance. I'm sorry, but it is simply a bad movie defended only by an old "you don't like it because you don't understand it!" line. Yeah, been there, done that. 2/10.