Reviews

After watching many documentaries about prisons and inmates, I think this movie gets top marks for poor acting and useless subplots. Rodrigo Santoro as Lady Di, and Milton Gonçalves as Chico demonstrated good acts, but everyone else performed poorly.

Carandiru highlights a 1992 riot and its consequences which only occurs in the climax. Thats alright, but we are not offered any comparisons or standards to let us know if excessive force was used, and if prisoners (always in party mood) were justified in rioting.

Throughout we are subjected to irrelevant subplots -- none relevant to the climax. How does individual resentment build up against authorities? Yes the living conditions are horrible but most inmates seem well adjusted to prison life. When one knife goes missing, Ebony (who doesn't project good leadership or charisma) threatens that one man will die everyday, yet in the climax we see hundreds of shanks falling out of windows.

In any prison, the relationship between guards and inmates can give a hint of what is going wrong, and if early prevention was required. Prisoners' reaction to control tactics employed by staff is valuable. Finally portrayal of dynamics among inmates are important. For example, inmates cooperating with staff is generally looked down at but here Ebony is a leader. By my standards, "The Shawshank Redemption" is the best example of a prison movie.

My main gripe is that the movie doesn't build up to the final tension leading to the riot. Needed more research on prisons and less of fantastic camera-work.

Danny Boyle deserves credit for doing an excellent job in this movie. In my opinion the strongest actor of all was Cliff Curtis as Searle. Other characters I enjoyed were Mace and Kaneda. It seems that Mace was always the only one solving problems and fighting cold, from start to finish. Capa was overrated and Trey hardly did anything more than say "I f****d up". Cassie was just another pretty girl in a sci-fi movie. Cory's only contribution was checking oxygen levels. Kaneda's death initiated tragedy. Harvey was only required twice, once when he found Icarus I, and next when he revealed the human issue of survival when only one spacesuit is available for three people.

At first I was surprised by how young most of the crew looked. In reality, for a mission this important, Astronauts would be in their 40s and would have multiple skills. There are many other plot holes:

1. Mace volunteers Capa for a dangerous mission but later gives him the only spacesuit because nobody else bothered to learn to operate the bomb

2. If the two spaceships were docked and each carried a payload of the mass of Manhattan (estimated to be 823 x 10^9 tonnes), gravitational attraction involving the proximity of both spaceships, sun, and mercury nearby would cause too many complications for them to remain docked for as long as they did anyway.

3. A mission this size and importance would have at least a backup computer

4. As pointed out by another reviewer, when Capa asks for "full sunlight!" on Pinbacker, it doesn't vaporize the guy. However it is implied that Searle died on the Icarus I when the shield moved away

5. The shield is given too much importance. A heat shield can protect you when entering a cold atmosphere like the earth's because in that case heat is produced through friction. The sun's atmosphere (if we can call it that) is different. If anything, a solar flare can wrap around and destroy everything, and that being said how does the payload's gravity and air pressure continue to work properly in the end? Yes its true that due to the sun's gravity things would happen much slowly, but still, I had a few "aw, come on" moments.

6. Since Pinbacker knew his ship was Icarus I, he was aware that Icarus II was being built. Therefore computers on both ships (or at least Icarus II) should know about each other's crew (or a pool of astronauts). But they don't, so there is an unidentified "fifth" crew member.

7. As another reviewer pointed out, fire extinguishers were absent. I myself feel the fire shouldn't have even occurred as an explosion because if its an oxygen producing garden, there is also CO2 present.

8. Both Mercury and Icarus-I make similar "space music", or at least it wasn't detected properly.

9. Pinbacker really spoiled the movie for me. Why is he so powerful and has not developed infections if his skin has peeled off? How does he eat and excrete?

I've read complaints about how the physics or astronomy (e.g. stars when the screen was down) wasn't right but you have to remember that this movie revolves around an "idea" and its execution. All in all, good job. I rate this movie 6 out of 10 because its full of more "plot technicalities" than character development.