Stowaway (2021)

[Fukui San]

An excellent, intimate sci-fi movie available on Netflix right now. Toni Collette is the commander of a three person spaceship on a two year mission to a Mars colony, along with scientists Anna Kendrick and Daniel Dae Kim. The discovery of an unexpected fourth passenger (Shamier Anderson) throws the whole mission with its carefully curated level of life sustaining supplies into jeopardy.

I love the carefully controlled sensibility of this one. Not a thrill a minute, just smart people trying to deal with an impossible situation.

[raven]

I thought this was pretty good - I had just had to overlook the two unbelievables - the stowing away in the first place and that they only had ONE CO2 scrubber, a part so important they would all die without it.  Seemed like they might have wanted an extra one of those.

I handwaved those away and did enjoy it.  I thought all of the performances were good and it was really nice to see Shamier Anderson, who was done dirty on Wynonna Earp.

I didn't know what to expect but was intrigued by the cast and so was pleasantly surprised. 

[rmontro]

On 5/13/2021 at 8:12 PM, raven said:

I handwaved those away and did enjoy it.  I thought all of the performances were good and it was really nice to see Shamier Anderson, who was done dirty on Wynonna Earp.

I enjoyed it, I like movies that take place on spaceships for whatever reason.  I thought it was a little disappointing that when crunch time came, all the commander did was sit and cry.  Especially since I felt like they were trying to send a message by having a female commander, and no white males in the movie.  But the heroics were left to others.

[MisterGlass]

This was a decent, contained little suspense movie.  I would have liked it to be more science/process focused given that it was a space survival story.  I would have expected everyone to immediately ask questions about oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and food, since all of them were science and medical personnel.

Here's an article on one of the real space algae experiments.

On 5/28/2021 at 11:22 PM, rmontro said:

I thought it was a little disappointing that when crunch time came, all the commander did was sit and cry.

I was not as bothered by her crying.  At that point, there was nothing the commander could do.  She was not physically able to get the second cylinder due to the broken arm.  Up to that point she'd found the stowaway, identified the life support problem, isolated the leaking part of the ship, got all of the mission support crew working on solutions, gotten David to investigate the algae, and proposed to mission control that she die instead of Michael.

 

[overtherainbow]

It was better than a lot of sci-fi space movies, I'll give it that. I really like suspenseful survival movies. But the premise was so ridiculous and there were too many plot holes to fully enjoy it. Anna Kendrick was also not believable as a doctor at all. . 

It would have been a better twist if he was actually a stowaway, rather than the unbelievable premise of him being trapped in a hatch in the ceiling, assuming to have been knocked out during takeoff.