Europa Report Trailer Is Mysterious, Gorgeous, Tense, Interesting, Etc.
This article is more than 2 years old
Holy shit. I’ve been really excited about quite a few movies this year, but Europa Report is the one film that I really hoped would be amazing. Big-budget movies like Star Trek Into Darkness and Oblivion are beyond hope, regardless of their quality, because too many cooks are in the kitchen. But a shoestring-budget film like Europa Report, despite those financial limitations, is so much freer than most Hollywood fare. Now the film’s first full-length trailer (seen above) has gotten me more excited for a film than I’ve been in months. Well, the trailer for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity was pretty damned amazing as well. Is this what being spoiled on spacey sci-fi cinema is like?
We finally get more of a feel for how the film’s presentation is set, which sticks to the documentary aesthetic, adding the slightly realistic tone without looking like a headache of a found-footage horror. The failures of that sub-genre assume audiences are more intrigued by the threat than by the emotional reactions of the characters that are threatened, the camera is never allowed to settle on faces, and all subtlety is lost. I get the sense that Europa Report will be far more of a character-based film, with its focus on human life’s role within the universe, at least on some level. I’d bring up Prometheus, but I’m trying to keep my spirits up. Anyway, the use of static cameras will allow these actors to give their characters a better chance for audiences to relate.
And I’ll be honest here. I’m highly intrigued by the mystery of this team’s trip to Europa and the life/non-life that they end up finding there. I think the film looks fantastic, but both the trailer and the iTunes Movie Trailers page for the film utilize some of the more relevant blurbs I’ve ever seen for a film, and that is what has me truly excited. Just reading publications such as Space.com, io9, and Popular Science lauding the film so heavily almost works better than the trailer itself. What’s beneath the ice, people? Find out when the film goes VOD on June 27th and hits theaters on August 2nd. Get Europed in to the magic. Somebody put that on a poster.
