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Europa Report Movie Review

Europa Report is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Sebastian Cordero and starring Anamaria Marinca. It’s such a great, highly underappreciated movie.

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“Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known…

what does your life actually matter?“

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A space exploration company sends six of the best astronauts from around the world on a privately funded mission to search and confirm life on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. First of all, I am obsessed with Jupiter’s Europa, utterly obsessed with it. I adore oceans and aquatic ecosystems, so simply the idea of a giant icy ocean on another planet/satellite is incredibly intriguing to me. Finally, NASA is set to send a probe in a decade or so from now to explore the water and search for live, and thus this film is becoming all the more potent and relevant.

Seeing this film for the first time in 2013, I found it to be utterly amazing. Watching it now, I did find it flawed in some areas, and more on that later, but I still love most of it to pieces. The one thing that I appreciate most about it has to be its very high realism. Yes, this is a manned exploration, and we are away from that decades, maybe even a century, but still in the weak technology, carelessness on board and rash decisions, the movie felt very real and very much like it could happen sooner rather than later. Add to that the very plausible scenarios that happen on this moon, and you’ve got one hell of an eerie experience how plausible it feels.

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In my opinion, this is one of quintessential examples of how to properly inspire awe and imagination in your audiences, something that most fantasy and/or SF movies fail to recognize. Instead of showering you with countless creatures or phenomena, this one only features a couple of such things, and thus it becomes all the more powerful and simply fascinating. I wanted to know what was awaiting them on this icy world, and I was thrilled and scared for them simultaneously, and thus the movie truly got what it feels like going into the unknown in search of weird extraterrestrial life – it is utterly fascinating and exciting, but also quite scary.

The bioluminescence angle was very interesting, the algae find was very important and it felt highly scientific, all of that sequence, and the final creature reveal was so powerful. The film obviously proposes for convergent evolution, as owing to its independent roots, it was the only choice to portray this world, but I am all for it, as I do think it is the most plausible scenario.

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The film also raises some interesting questions about the search for extraterrestrial life, and any scientific research and breakthroughs done in space. They at the end all sacrifice themselves for the knowledge for the entire human race, and that was necessary in this instance, but still very much anti-individual, anti-one life. Maybe this type of sacrifice is necessary for any serious space exploration, which is why today’s care for all individuals thwarts real scientific breakthroughs. It’s an interesting question to ask.

Apart from those scientific terms, Europa Report is simply very believable and stupendously executed as a whole. I did find most of the characters forgettable, though. That was a problem for me, though in SF the characters are unimportant, but here they tried to develop them more, and they still ended up being underdeveloped. I did like all of the actors, in particular seeing Anamaria Marinca of ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ fame was wonderful. I loved the crew’s infatuation with their findings, and their yearning for knowledge. Individually, they suffered, but as a team, I found them to be excellent.

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My main problem with Europa Report is its very timely, and thus a bit dated in terms of future historic context, found footage approach. The first act in particular felt too aggressive and cheap in that regard. However, this is still one of the greatest found footage movies out there as they managed to utilize on it properly, wringing a lot of suspense and mystery from it.

The end twist was excellent, and it really fitted the whole found footage concept and why they chose it in the first place. The movie simply is very clever and very realistic throughout, and it also benefits from some excellent shots, in particular of Europa and the creatures and the phenomena that they encounter. It’s one of the best films of its respective year.

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The greatest science fiction deals with immediate, plausible future. Europa Report is very much like that – eerily plausible and thus all the more intriguing. As humanity awaits the real exploration of the icy world of Europa in a decade or two, this film thus becomes more relevant with every passing year. Although weakly realized individually, the characters are excellent as a group. The found footage angle is excessive, but ultimately it fitted the narrative very cleverly, and is one of the better examples of such an approach. But above all else, this film features some beautiful, truly awe-inspiring shots, it benefits from a terrific central mystery that captivated me throughout, and it felt very real and plausible in every single scenario. The film’s greatest achievement is that it truly gets the importance of the search for extraterrestrial life, and how incredibly exciting and simultaneously frightening it can be. It’s one of the best, most underrated genre films out there.