Europa Report – Review

17th March 2014

Sci-fi found footage film as document of craaaazzzzeeee space mission.

I’ll be up front. I’m tired of found footage films. It was a trend that started off as a bit frustrating. The form seems to exist mostly for uninspired horrors using the same jump scares and reveals as Blair Witch did fifteen years ago. Then a slew of similar themed haunted house films came out to dwindling effect. Now found footage is becoming more “mock-umentary” with filmmakers framing the footage around professional looking talking heads.

Europa Report plays out like an after-the-fact documentary about a mission of discover to one of Jupiter’s moons. As is usually the way with these set ups the mission goes from “wow look at us floating through space isn’t it amazing?” to “oh no each of us keeps dying in a series of unfortunate, improbable and sometimes idiotic events”. Some reviewers have found the films mix of thrills, mystery and drama to be down right entertaining. I did not. The cast of unfortunates never inspire or grip. Perhaps this has something to do with CCTV look of footage? Maybe my brain is too reliant on pretty images to make me care about a camera, I doubt it though. I quickly lost interest of what these people were doing and why they were doing other than because they can.

The mix of cameras used eventually becomes tiring as we switch from in-built helmet cameras to on-board computers. Sometimes the quality looks desperately cinematic as if the director wishes for a moment that he could break out the bonds of his self imposed formula. The actors do okay with what they’re given. A lot of dialogue in which they have to sound concerned or say they can’t get to something. It’s a thriller in space you can pretty much write in your head and you’re nearly there.

A lot of time and effort obviously went into making Europa Report which is unfortunate because it’s a film that completely fails to interest from the start and by the end you may even forget how it started.

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