Stowaway [Netflix]

pixelburp · 24-03-2021 4:34pm #1

Decent cast, and an interesting - if probably belief-suspending - premise, where someone accidentally winds up on a mission to Mars, with life-support not capable of sustaining four people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_apvQkWsVY

Mr E · 24-03-2021 5:11pm

Looks great!

corkonion · 24-03-2021 5:15pm

Mr E wrote: »

Looks great!

It sure does

mikhail · 24-03-2021 6:00pm

Great cast, cracking premise... It's nice to look forward to a movie release again! It's been a while.

Dades · 24-03-2021 6:44pm

Yep, I'm in.

Didn't watch the full trailer in case of spoilers.

Good to see yer man from Lost!

pixelburp · 25-03-2021 6:37pm

Dades wrote: »

Yep, I'm in.

Didn't watch the full trailer in case of spoilers.

Good to see yer man from Lost!

I suspect the strength of this film will lie in the script, and how deftly it adds stakes without passing the Idiot Ball around. Too easy to suddenly make professionals act like morons for the sake of things going Boom.

pixelburp · 22-04-2021 8:47am

This dropped today, for those keeping eye / track.

FortuneChip · 22-04-2021 11:38pm

It's very good if a little simple. It's very bare bones - be warned. And yeah, the very initial premise is a little hard to believe but once you come to terms with that, you'll be grand.

Avoids a lot of the pitfalls that other movies would have gleefully dived into which is refreshing.

pinksoir · 23-04-2021 8:04am

FortuneChip wrote: »

It's very good if a little simple. It's very bare bones - be warned. And yeah, the very initial premise is a little hard to believe but once you come to terms with that, you'll be grand.

Avoids a lot of the pitfalls that other movies would have gleefully dived into which is refreshing.

Agree 100% with this. Some nice character type driven moments along the way too, which are well written.

Still scratching my head over how he even ended up there though...

Tom Mann Centuria · 23-04-2021 8:08am

pinksoir wrote: »

Still scratching my head over how he even ended up there though...

So the film could happen........

McGrath5 · 23-04-2021 3:25pm

Enjoyed it for the most part.

The part when they had to go get the oxygen supplies was well done

pinksoir · 23-04-2021 10:27pm

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

So the film could happen........

Touché.

Fysh · 23-04-2021 10:35pm

I quite enjoyed this - similar to The Martian in overall tone in that the crew are clearly individuals trained and selected for their mission, and the setting is treated with consideration rather than being an incidental backdrop. The performances are good and the central conceit is nicely simple. If I did have a complaint it would be that, at 2 hours, it's probably a bit longer than it needs to be for its very well executed concept, but not so much that I'd be looking at my watch or getting impatient.

As someone else said, the main hurdle in terms of plausibility is the inciting incident - but to be fair, the title of the film sets you up for that and once you accept it, everything else that happens spools out plausibly and with nothing more objectionable than maybe some bad luck around timing.

feelings · 24-04-2021 11:42pm

5/10 at best.

Why did the hatch of the kingfisher fall away as it did, as if it had weight? Shouldn't it be weightless in space?

24-04-2021 11:47pm

Didn't care about the characters at all. can't recommend it.

Sad Professor · 25-04-2021 8:30am

feelings wrote: »

5/10 at best.

Why did the hatch of the kingfisher fall away as it did, as if it had weight? Shouldn't it be weightless in space?

The ship was rotating which created artificial gravity except in the centre.

PhiloCypher · 25-04-2021 11:25am

Fysh wrote: »

I quite enjoyed this - similar to The Martian in overall tone in that the crew are clearly individuals trained and selected for their mission, and the setting is treated with consideration rather than being an incidental backdrop. The performances are good and the central conceit is nicely simple. If I did have a complaint it would be that, at 2 hours, it's probably a bit longer than it needs to be for its very well executed concept, but not so much that I'd be looking at my watch or getting impatient.

As someone else said, the main hurdle in terms of plausibility is the inciting incident - but to be fair, the title of the film sets you up for that and once you accept it, everything else that happens spools out plausibly and with nothing more objectionable than maybe some bad luck around timing.

Yeh they were very vague on the details.

He muttered something about being in the second stage and failing to strap in. Why was he strapping in at all ?

Basq · 25-04-2021 2:06pm

Twas grand.. 2 hours flew by.

Helps that Anna Kendrick is always watchable.

Full_Circle_81 · 25-04-2021 2:31pm

PhiloCypher wrote: »

Yeh they were very vague on the details.
He muttered something about being in the second stage and failing to strap in. Why was he strapping in at all ?

Because the details were so vague, I expected

it to be a ruse and turn into a Dead Calm situation

, but no. Odd that they went along with the explanation so easily.

humberklog · 25-04-2021 5:24pm

Sad Professor wrote: »

The ship was rotating which created artificial gravity except in the centre.

Then the lid should have been attracted to the Kingfisher or simply floated away when pulled apart. There's no falling in space.

Anyway, I also posted in the main thread...how did that big fella fit into the tiny space and secure it shut with screws?

Sad Professor · 25-04-2021 5:42pm

humberklog wrote: »

Then the lid should have been attracted to the Kingfisher or simply floated away when pulled apart. There's no falling in space.

Of course there's falling in space. That's what gravity is. In this case, the centrifugal force created by the spinning would cause the lid to fall away. The same way Kendrick slid down the cable toward the ship on the way back. Whether it falls away in the correct way, I honestly don't know. But it certainly shouldn't have floated away.

It's not a great film. First half in particular was weak but I thought the second half was much better. That it doesn't explain

how the film's title character ended up on the ship

is indeed weird. However, that isn't, as some seem to be suggesting, a plot hole, it's just something that the film choses not to explain. It's the least of the film's problems tbh. It's main issue is that the story and characters aren't compelling.

humberklog · 25-04-2021 5:48pm

Sad Professor wrote: »

Of course there's falling in space. That's what gravity is. In this case, the centrifugal force created by the spinning would cause the lid to fall away. The same way Kendrick slid down the cable toward the ship on the way back. Whether it falls away in the correct way, I honestly don't know. But it certainly shouldn't have floated away.

Well that would mean that the lid was under the pull of the Earth's gravity (nearest planet or the Sun?) and if it was to pull the lid away like it did it would surely pull the spaceship too?

Ah...here...there's was enough faults with the movie without expecting them to that right : ).

pixelburp · 25-04-2021 5:56pm

I thought the film was dead-centre fine. A much better example of the low to mid budget Netflix film that is too often abject trash. Didn't care about the manner in which the Stowaway got onboard; to the rest it was Competency Porn really; no high dramatics, no Idiot Balls passed around. The fault there obviously being the cast didn't have much to work with beyond "these are sober professionals". The finale was definitely anticlimactic, and felt like the thin script finally running out of puff, but the rest was unfussy and economic. A simple scenario played out, perhaps a touch longer than needed.

Sad Professor · 25-04-2021 6:05pm

humberklog wrote: »

Well that would mean that the lid was under the pull of the Earth's gravity (nearest planet or the Sun?) and if it was to pull the lid away like it did it would surely pull the spaceship too?

The lid was pulled by the centrifugal forces created by the spin, which was pulling everything outward away from the axis. Technically I think, yes, it was pulling the ship and the Kingfisher too. Not gravity strictly speaking but it created artificial gravity on their ship and also on the Kingfisher. It was why going out there was so dangerous.

gogo · 25-04-2021 6:06pm

Honestly didn’t enjoy it all, couldn’t wait to get to watch it last night but felt it was a whole lot of meh..
super premise, but the character back ground just didn’t go far enough for me, the stowaway’s own story was great and then that’s the end of that little segment, on to the next... and so on until it was over, I didn’t care about any of the characters at all, not enough to care if they all died or not, extremely anticlimactic at the end also.
It was watchable but it could have been great!

fitz · 25-04-2021 10:53pm

Sad Professor wrote: »

The lid was pulled by the centrifugal forces created by the spin, which was pulling everything outward away from the axis. Technically I think, yes, it was pulling the ship and the Kingfisher too. Not gravity strictly speaking but it created artificial gravity on their ship and also on the Kingfisher. It was why going out there was so dangerous.

The door coming away from the kingfisher set it spinning, but it didn't fall away...it's that the Kingfisher was moving away from it at speed. All a matter of perspective.

Royale with Cheese · 26-04-2021 12:40am

I watched this tonight, Netflix's own films are usually Dolby Vision or at least 4K but this was only HD. There was noticeable artifacting at times with darker scenes too or was that just me? I also had to turn down my surround speakers at the beginning of the film as they were way too loud and I couldn't hear the dialogue.

johnny_ultimate · 26-04-2021 1:06am

A pretty weak film tbh. Whatever about the flimsy writing, I don’t think the filmmakers knew what tone they were going for? The music and moody, subdued cinematography suggest some sort of looming menace, mystery or violence...

and there’s nothing of the sort.

None of it settled into a grove for me, the cinematic language used to tell the story operating on a different wavelength to the story.

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

I watched this tonight, Netflix's own films are usually Dolby Vision or at least 4K but this was only HD. There was noticeable artifacting at times with darker scenes too or was that just me? I also had to turn down my surround speakers at the beginning of the film as they were way too loud and I couldn't hear the dialogue.

Yeah, it looks pretty ropey - there’s a lengthy shot of space at the end and there was just an articact-y splodge down the bottom of the screen. Sometimes Netflix don’t get Vision / 4K content when they just buy the rights to something for Europe... but yeah this one’s a wider release for them and it still looks less than optimal.

namloc1980 · 03-05-2021 11:22pm

I still can't get over how yer man

ended up being screwed inside a panel on the spacecraft and survived launch without anyone missing him. Seems like very loose protocols for the ground crew.

mikhail · 04-05-2021 11:55am

namloc1980 wrote: »

I still can't get over how yer man
ended up being screwed inside a panel on the spacecraft and survived launch without anyone missing him. Seems like very loose protocols for the ground crew.

There seemed to be some corner cutting in general. Maybe not as unlikely with commercial launches/missions as you'd think. He seems to have been

unconscious for five hours, which is very serious and maybe speaks to a serious head injury during take-off but was maybe downplayed at little. The movie cliche of the hero giving or receiving a blow to the head and waking up half an hour later with no ill effects worse than a headache is complete nonsense. If you're unconscious for longer than a few seconds, you need medical attention.

expectationlost · 04-05-2021 10:01pm

at the end of the film

she should have taken a paperback out of her pocket and started reading

, in order to complete the callback.

Stowaway [Netflix]

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