8th Brian De Palma film for me. This is a really weird one. I've always seen Brian De Palma as a 70s, 80s, and very early 90s director. That's where his most famous films are anyway. So watching a Sci-Fi Brian De Palma film released in 2000, feels very weird. In addition to that, based on the average ratings across his filmography, Brian De Palma had a fairly weak end to his film-making career. All his 'worst' films were released in the late 90s and 2000s. Of course I'll make my own assessment of those films once I've finished his filmography, but coming off films like Scarface, Carrie, and The Untouchables, it felt strange diving into his more recent films.
Right off the bat, this is probably the least De Palma-like film in his filmography. In my opinion, this felt like De Palma experimenting with a genre and a style which he wasn't familiar with, and sadly, it doesn't really come off. I like some of the space sequences and visually it's pretty good for 2000, but it's mostly uninteresting. I'm not totally sure how many films there are like this before this came out, but this does feel like a worse version of subsequent Sci-Fi films. Now that I think about it, it's essentially The Martian but without any stylistic vision.
In summary, it's an ok watch. Not bad, but also not impressive in any way either. De Palma's first 'miss' for me.
8th Brian De Palma film for me. This is a really weird one. I've always seen Brian De Palma as a 70s, 80s, and very early 90s director. That's where his most famous films are anyway. So watching a Sci-Fi Brian De Palma film released in 2000, feels very weird. In addition to that, based on the average ratings across his filmography, Brian De Palma had a fairly weak end to his film-making career. All his 'worst' films were released in the late 90s and 2000s. Of course I'll make my own assessment of those films once I've finished his filmography, but coming off films like Scarface, Carrie, and The Untouchables, it felt strange diving into his more recent films.
Right off the bat, this is probably the least De Palma-like film in his filmography. In my opinion, this felt like De Palma experimenting with a genre and a style which he wasn't familiar with, and sadly, it doesn't really come off. I like some of the space sequences and visually it's pretty good for 2000, but it's mostly uninteresting. I'm not totally sure how many films there are like this before this came out, but this does feel like a worse version of subsequent Sci-Fi films. Now that I think about it, it's essentially The Martian but without any stylistic vision.
In summary, it's an ok watch. Not bad, but also not impressive in any way either. De Palma's first 'miss' for me.
