Cast:

Anna Kendrick              Zoe Levenson

Daniel Dae Kim             David Kim

Shamier Anderson        Michael Adams

Toni Collette                 Marina Barnett

Movie time was here again and we started scanning the NETFLIX menu for the evening’s entertainment. Almost right away, we came across Stowaway. Stowaway is another NETFLIX original, and of late, these originals can be brilliant, or, on the other hand a big steaming pile of fecal matter. When I saw the title and read the little synopsis that NETFLIX provides…I was thinking, “this could be another take on “The Martian”, would love to see how they manage to figure this one out?” I was really looking forward to it, especially when I saw that Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim were part of the cast.

Every film or program that I had seen with Collette, I pretty much enjoyed. Additionally, I liked Kim’s role in Lost as well as Hawaii Five-O, so pretty much a solid start in my opinion. With respect to Kendrick, I can pretty much take or leave her. Not really a fan of her work writ large, there are a few films in her resume that I have enjoyed, though, not really for her contribution. Anderson on the other hand, was more of an unknown to us. We had to check IMDB to verify his filmography and we found out that we had seen him in some other programs/movies, but his role did not really leave a lasting impact on us. 

So, at this point, we have scanned NETFLIX selections, selected a film, looked at the synopsis and made our final decision and started it. The film started out ok, the rocket was in the middle of a launch, we meet the first 3 principal characters Levenson (Kendrick), Kim (Kim) and the mission commander, Barnett (Collette). The Rocket is taking off, leaving orbit, there is a little bit of a discussion with mission control that the weight is slightly off, but it still takes off and enters orbit. 

Our valiant crew is in orbit and apparently starts the artificial gravity by spinning the vessel. Once the artificial gravity is in place, the crew commences to settle in for their 2-year voyage to Mars and back. There are a few scenes of mundane tasks, unloading packing things etc. Then the commander discovers a few drops of blood coming from a panel, Barnett (Collette) opens it to find an unconscious man inside. He falls to the floor, apparently wounded from some unknown action. Once he comes too, they discover that Adams (Anderson) is an engineer and he is unaware of how he managed to get sealed into the ship prior to take-off. Now this is where the tension starts to mount, he apparently is taking care of his sister as their parents are dead, and he needs to return home to take care of her. Unfortunately, there is insufficient fuel or means to return him to Earth so he must continue along with them as a member of the crew. 

Accepting this, they give him some menial tasks to perform and continue along happily to their destination of Mars. This is where they find out that their only CO2 scrubber has been damaged and there is no way to fix it. With the CO2 scrubber damaged, there will be insufficient oxygen available for the 4 of them to continue their 2-year voyage, so they must find other means for survival. 

I am sorry, at this point forward there will be some spoilers if you are going to watch this film. So, the CO2 scrubber is broken, they can’t return Adams and they must soldier on to their destination. This was the perfect opportunity for some ingenuity that was prevalent in the movie “The Martian”. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed. The crew sort of started down the path of creativity and imagination with the growth of the algae in the lab, but then it just went sideways. With the demise of the algae experiment, the only solution that is given to them from Control is that they must kill Adams or have him kill himself. Kim (Kim) takes it upon himself to reveal the truth to Adams (Anderson) of their dire situation and leaves a deadly needle with him so that he can do the honourable thing. Levenson (Kendrick) as the crew doctor takes umbrage to this course of action and comes up with the idea that they can take a space walk to the rocket portion of the ship and take some of the liquid oxygen stored there. 

Levenson (Kendrick) and Kim (Kim) undergo a spacewalk via climbing up two cables to the rocket portion to see if there is any liquid oxygen left in the tanks. To further complicate matters, it seems that Kim (Kim) has some vertigo issues, the tanks that they are carrying for the transfer are about twice the size of regular scuba tanks and they are manhandling them at the same time. They clumsily make the trip, find out that there is air there (They must fill two tanks to ensure that they can the trip for all 4 of them), and make the transfer. Oh no! Just as they are finishing filling the first tank, they find a solar storm is headed their way and Kim (Kim) and Levenson (Kendrick) must come back as soon as possible otherwise they will die. So rushing down the cables so that they can beat the storm, Levenson (Kendrick) loses the tank as she inadvertently lets it go. Returning to the shielded area with no Oxygen in hand, it is determined that someone has to go back and get the 2^nd tank, otherwise there will be insufficient air left and they will all die. Additionally, even if they manage to get one more tank, there is only enough air for 3 people instead of 4. 

Levenson (Kendrick) takes it upon herself to get the remaining tank, even though the solar storm is still going on and with the knowledge that she will die. Luckily her suicide mission is successful, and she retrieves the tank of 250lbs of liquid Oxygen gives it to her mates while she waits for her own demise outside of the ship. End film. 

Ok sure I gave out pretty much the plot and probably the climax points of the film, but really, do you want to watch this poor imitation of a thriller? I may have saved 2 hours of your life from being wasted! So let’s look at the films issues and plot holes, which they are many:

1. What kind of space agency would not take stock of all of their staff before take-off? If he (Adams) was missing for some time, would there not have been search?
2. Adams (Anderson) was supposedly an engineer, could he not have tried to macgyver something or even attempt to repair the CO2 scrubber?
3. What kind of agency would send a ship into space for 2 years with only one of each critical piece of equipment? There should always be redundancies built in.
4. What caused the algae to die? No reason was given or even a half assed explanation.
5. Upon discovery of the stow-away, would it not have come to light right away that there would be an oxygen problem, not to mention food and water? I am sure that the quantities of all essentials would have been calculated to the nth degree, so right out of the gate, they would have had to ration food and water to make up for the extra person. The importance of the weight of supplies was brought to light very early in the film with the little verbal sparring between Kim (Kim) and Levenson (Kendrick) over which University was better when she gave him Coffee in her mug from her own school. 
6. Where did Adam’s (Anderson) extra clothes come from, sure some could have been provided by Kim, but they seemed to fit perfectly, and they were not quite the same size/build.
7. How could 2 tanks of liquid Oxygen, about double the size of a scuba tank provide sufficient air for 5 months that they needed. I did a little bit of google searching and found out that a 75lb tank of liquid oxygen can supply a hospital patient for 4-8 days of air. Ok, so if they had both tanks filled, it would only add about 7 weeks’ maximum of additional air…and I am being extremely generous in my math. Ergo, they still would have all died.
8. If the CO2 scrubber failed, would not the build-up of CO2 cause them to die anyway? Where did this plot point and scientific fact go?
9. The liberal use of gravity in the spaceship was a little off the mark in my opinion. For example, when the hatch gets pulled off, it falls down. In space, would it have not flown off in a flat trajectory? Again, a serious miss here. 
10. The vehicle was supposed to be spinning to cause artificial gravity. Ok, I realize I am not a physicist or scientist, but when the ship was being put against something that is stationary in space, (like some of the shots with the moon/earth in the background), would not the ship be spinning in those scenes?
11. If you are on a 2-year mission, you let the doctor sacrifice themselves for the good of all? The botanist already lost their experiment due to the dismal use of the algae…would he have not been more expendable? 
12. They had about 10 days left before it would have become critical…could they have not waited out the solar storm instead of letting one crew member sacrifice themselves?

Ok, I think I have bashed most of the plot points and holes enough, but I am sure that there are so many more that I missed. I could only say WTF so many times to the screen when we were watching before it really became monotonous. 

Were there any parts of the film that I liked? I actually liked the premise of the film, just too bad a successful outcome was not the result. Some of the cast did quite well, but they were given lame dialogue and a poor plot to work with, so I can’t really blame them for this. Besides the poor story, mediocre effects and poor dialogue, let us take a moment to take a look at the cast;

Anna Kendrick as Zoe Levenson: As I mentioned at the start, I am not a fan of Kendrick, but I have to say, she has been in a few good films. Not giving much to work with in this film, I believe that she did the best that she could do. She did come across as the caring doctor and she portrayed empathy to the stowaway in a somewhat believable fashion. Kendrick also displayed fair chemistry with her remaining co-stars. While the film was a dud, she has been in worse films in my opinion.

Daniel Dae Kim as David Kim: In this film, Kim did what Kim does best, play the strong silent type. Much as Kendrick, the script is not the fault of the actor, but of the screenwriter, so what he had to work with was not the best. His banter with Kendrick was somewhat believable as well as his personal angst in dealing with Adams (Anderson) when he gave him the needle. I have to say his space sickness and vertigo was not done in a believable fashion, but who knows, neither of us have been to space, so maybe he was believable. But, I drew on my own experience on sailing in the North Atlantic when the sea was rough, and I think my own expressions and resulting actions were a tad more colourful should we say. Kim is a good actor, and I really enjoy his roles in Hawaii Five-O, Lost, and 24 and I always look forward to his performances in TV or film.

Shamier Anderson as Michael Adams: Anderson was not really well known to us. His face was somewhat familiar, so I had to look him to see what had done in the past. While he had been in a few shows that I had watched, it was nothing memorable. In the case of Stowaway, I don’t think he was given much to work with and he did the best he could with the limited direction provided. For an engineer, you would have thought his character would have been more hand’s on in the Macgyver department and that he might have been able to figure out some other solutions. But then again, his role in the film did not allow for it. He had decent chemistry with his co-stars and his emotions with respect to his upcoming death and his departure were somewhat believable. Not a bad performance for what he was given, and I will keep a lookout for him in his future projects. 

Toni Collette as Marina Barnett: I always like Collette in any role I had seen her in. She has been around forever and even in some of the dud’s that she was in, I liked her character. Again, I will have to say the same thing for this film, even though the film was pretty lame, I actually liked her. She was decisive, no-nonsense type of leader. One thing that threw me for a bit of a loop, in all the time I had seen her in movies and shows, I never knew that she was Australian. When she was talking in with her normal voice in the movie, I was surprised and had to confirm that this was in fact her real accent. Well done to her in all of her other productions for producing a realistic American accent! However, back to Stowaway, while her character and role were actually good, I could not get past the film inconsistencies and plot holes. I must say this, if she was not in the film, I probably would have switched it off 15 minutes into it and searched for something else. 

So, now for the ultimate question, were we entertained? No, we were not. For a film that had so much potential and such a strong premise, it imploded itself. The plot holes were big enough to park a space station, and character development, dialogue and special effects were weak. Even strong actors like Collette and Kim, could not carry the weight of this flop on their shoulders. Would we recommend it…no we would not. If you have any affinity for the Sci-Fi genre, please give this one a pass and move on to a sci-fi movie that has a better plot, characters and effects. Stowaway just does not cut it. Hopefully NETFLIX will come up with some better sci-fi films in the future.

Our rating: 2/10

If you are interested in other films starring the main characters, please consider the following recommendations:

Anna Kendrick              The Accountant, Up in the Air, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Daniel Dae Kim             Lost, Hawaii Five-O, New Amsterdam, Always be my Maybe, 24

Shamier Anderson        Goliath, Defiance

Toni Collette                 The Sixth Sense, Shaft, In her shoes, Little Miss Sunshine, The United States of Tara, Knives Out

Till next time!