Europa Report (2013) - Are We Alone?

★★★☆☆

All you see in ‘Europa Report’ are images of a past event in mockumentary style. All shots are taken from so-called news clips and interviews, and cameras equipped inside and outside the spacecraft and spacesuits. The camera angles are narrow. The pictures are rough and shaky. Viewers like me may find it unpleasant. And I guess a mockumentary is still a mockumentary. The more you try to make it look real, the less it looks real!

As a fan of sci-fi films, the story’s interesting enough to me. A crew of astronauts setting out for Europa, one of the Jupiter’s moons, that is believed to harbor life under its ice-covered surface. The journey seems pretty gripping as it’s presented nonlinearly. But the ending turns me off. It reminds me of Danny Boyle’s ‘Sunshine’, a seemingly great sci-fi film unfortunately ruined by its mindless ending. What ‘Europa Report’ finally reveals is not that mindless after all, but it certainly leaves a bad aftertaste: why are we still thinking inside the box?

‘Europa One’ is out to find the answer to the question we’ve been asking for ages: are we alone? Well, I wonder, why must we take the risk to find the answer that we’ve already known as a matter of fact? Maybe it’s not that we need proof. It’s just that we’re essentially fearful, faithless and lonely.