Mathew Peters

This movie has a very interesting idea going on with some great mind altering concepts, but it’s executed oddly. First of all the acting is good, Natalie Portman kills it (as usual) but other actors (won’t name any) were just awkward. As for the execution, they flop on core elements which remove all the tension from it cause it’s just so unbelievable. Forgetting that to have high sci-fi elements you also need to execute the familiar properly in order to ground your viewer and to allow them to maintain their suspension of disbelief. For instance, why, after several failed missions with military personnel would this secret government base decide to send combat untrained, young scientists who have absolutely no preparation for high stress situations? Why is a psychologist with no military training leading the team? Why aren’t they setting up forward based every mile or so in order to ensure personnel survival? Why does a physicist know more about something related to flowers than the biologist expert on cell growth? Why would either know anything on this topic? They aren’t botanists. It’s terrible to see truly inspired ideas such as this fall flat because it begins to rely on poor writing/consistency just to make it’s plot move forward.