Review of Europa Report (2013) by Walter M — 11 Aug 2013

Even when first employed, the found footage format leant little to narrative filmmaking. And as time has gone on, that has become increasingly...

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(Cue funky electronic theme music.).

The haunting and suspenseful "Europa Report" takes the found footage format and makes something special out of it by simply creating a non-sequential and stripped down narrative that takes full advantage of its limited settings and showing what can be truly accomplished on a limited budget and unlimited imagination. In this case, we get what, at this current juncture, is probably the most plausible future of space travel, funded privately and financed as the most epic reality show ever. Even then, the movie cannot escape all the traps of the format and does cheat. But it makes up for the limited characterizations(only James(Sharlto Copley) has any kind of backstory and is the only one known to leave anybody behind on earth) with a high level of performances.

So, when the movie starts, it is already six months into the manned mission to Europa with one crew member having died and Andrei(Michael Nyqvist), the chief engineer, slow in healing from an unknown malady. At which point, communications are also down, leaving Dr. Samantha Unger(Embeth Davidtz) back on earth to ponder their fate, along with most of humanity,.

All of which is in service of the movie's stated themes of praising the heroism of astronauts, past, present and future. In this same way, exploration does not happen in a single leap; it is one generation building upon the work of another. And to paraphrase Mission Commander William Xu(Daniel Wu), even if they find nothing, it will be something.