This is yet another film which had a good shot at being truly great and ended up being barely above average.
The actors (all four of them) and their performances are completely stellar, the CGI effects are great and will hold for decades to come, and the central idea is simple and ingenious at the same time. Unfortunately, this central, initial idea is where the ingenuity ends. The actual premise which came out of it mostly wasted it, as did the plot.
It felt like somebody had a truly great basic idea: two people on a ship trying to have a relationship whilst facing dangers of interstellar travel. As a matter of fact, it sounds like something I would come up with. Then somebody else started to build on this initial idea and didn't do a very good job. Not just the plot but the whole setting contains such a large logical holes which don't make any sense each on its own and even more so in combination with each other. These holes completely broke my suspension of disbelief and convinced me that the writers of the screenplay didn't even bother to read the Ender series (a recommended reading for pilots, officers, etc. and one of the "bibles" for building of fictional worlds containing interstellar colonialism).
For example, the story is set a thousand years in the future and yet the society still uses American dollars! Thousand years from now on, not only there won't be any dollars but there won't be even any United States and FED to print them! It's also rather ridiculous to expect that (fiat) money would still be used even locally, let alone on an interstellar level. It's also laughable that colonists would have any incentive to pay their debts to any corporation back home even if the colonies provided means to earn dollars which they have no use for. Earth-colonies relations simply wouldn't work that way even if FTL was possible and in this universe, ships travel at half the speed of light. Any corporation sending these ships wouldn't exist by the time a ship would reach its destination.
The logical structure (or lack of it) of the plot suffers a lot just for being set in such a flawed universe. At the same time, there are some (usual) plot-holes where things happen just for the dramatic effect.
To end on a bright note, I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the film. All the four actors which had any substantial part on the film (and especially the two leading ones) were absolutely perfect. Strangely enough (or not so strangely), I didn't see Lawrence's previous roles in her character - I never expected her to shape-shift or to pull out a bow and arrows. I saw a little bit of Star Lord in Pratt but only a little.
Like I've said, this film should have been great and it's a great pity that it isn't.
The actors (all four of them) and their performances are completely stellar, the CGI effects are great and will hold for decades to come, and the central idea is simple and ingenious at the same time. Unfortunately, this central, initial idea is where the ingenuity ends. The actual premise which came out of it mostly wasted it, as did the plot.
It felt like somebody had a truly great basic idea: two people on a ship trying to have a relationship whilst facing dangers of interstellar travel. As a matter of fact, it sounds like something I would come up with. Then somebody else started to build on this initial idea and didn't do a very good job. Not just the plot but the whole setting contains such a large logical holes which don't make any sense each on its own and even more so in combination with each other. These holes completely broke my suspension of disbelief and convinced me that the writers of the screenplay didn't even bother to read the Ender series (a recommended reading for pilots, officers, etc. and one of the "bibles" for building of fictional worlds containing interstellar colonialism).
For example, the story is set a thousand years in the future and yet the society still uses American dollars! Thousand years from now on, not only there won't be any dollars but there won't be even any United States and FED to print them! It's also rather ridiculous to expect that (fiat) money would still be used even locally, let alone on an interstellar level. It's also laughable that colonists would have any incentive to pay their debts to any corporation back home even if the colonies provided means to earn dollars which they have no use for. Earth-colonies relations simply wouldn't work that way even if FTL was possible and in this universe, ships travel at half the speed of light. Any corporation sending these ships wouldn't exist by the time a ship would reach its destination.
The logical structure (or lack of it) of the plot suffers a lot just for being set in such a flawed universe. At the same time, there are some (usual) plot-holes where things happen just for the dramatic effect.
To end on a bright note, I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the film. All the four actors which had any substantial part on the film (and especially the two leading ones) were absolutely perfect. Strangely enough (or not so strangely), I didn't see Lawrence's previous roles in her character - I never expected her to shape-shift or to pull out a bow and arrows. I saw a little bit of Star Lord in Pratt but only a little.
Like I've said, this film should have been great and it's a great pity that it isn't.