The Reel Review
A NASA astronaut returns to Earth after her first space mission, only to discover during quarantine that she may have picked up an unidentified passenger from another world. Kate Mara and Laurence Fishburne star in this sci-fi horror/thriller.
Production-wise, writer/director Jess Varley’s film is well done, with sleek visuals and clever camerawork around the spookily sterile, ultra-modern government quarantine compound. The problem is her screenplay, which is about as exciting as watching ice melt. The premise, that our intrepid astronaut survived a foreign substance puncturing both her space capsule AND her helmet upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, is a pretty hard suspension of disbelief to swallow. From there, the story gets even sillier, as Captain Walker (Mara) starts seeing strange apparitions – or are those just post-space travel hallucinations associated with re-adjusting to gravity?
Even the dull story’s big reveal in the third act is a weird letdown, as this feeble sci-fi horror and its increasingly annoying score limps along to an even more ridiculous ending. At least it is only 90 minutes. Even so, skip this and instead watch the similar-themed but far superior 2020 Russian sci-fi thriller Sputnik.
REEL FACTS
• Kate Mara (Chappaquiddick, The Martian) replaced Emma Roberts, who was initially cast in the lead role before dropping out.
• Jess Varley was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She’s also worked as an actress.
• Macy Gray has a cameo in the film as Captain Walker’s friend Val.
Video & Photo
