Gattaca

Rating:
Summary: Watch this after "Lost in Space"
Review: What a contrast! LIS is a plotless, joyless demo reel of how far we have come with digital special effects. Gattaca is so strong a movie that I cringe when I see it on the sci-fi shelf at the video store. Like "The talented Mr. Ripley", the movie deals with assuming the identity of another. Odd that in both films those characters are played by Jude Law. Gattaca is sparse with special effects, but where they are needed, they are used effectively. The plot is as compelling as any I've seen in years. Great casting and the director sets the perfect mood. I saw not a single misstep with this rare, fine "sci-fi" film. I will be waiting to buy the DVD special edition when it comes out.

Rating:
Summary: Paradox
Review: If you are a scientific minded person and believe in genes, then you better ask yourself how(?) far are you willing to go. Great movie.

Rating:
Summary: Protein for the Mind
Review: This movie brings a lot of questions up that are only just now becoming serious topics of discussion. The basic question is the fundamental question of free will vs destiny. Here we have genetics playing the part of destiny and human spirit playing the part of free will. Can you exceed your genetic predispositions? Is a person more than a sequence of nucleotides? Where is privacy when flakes of skin reveal our deepest secrets? All these and my favorite, self inflicted eugenics, are explored in this tale of love, deciept, courage, and hope. Now that DNA testing is well entrenched in our society you owe it to yourself to watch this movie and consider its implications in *your* lifetime.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi as it was meant to be: inteligent
Review: This movie was brilliant, it had a story that was both simple as it was complex. Everything about this movie breathes science fiction, but if you look at the state our current society and technology is in, you will notice the frightening world of Gattaca is not as far as it seems.

The setting is beautifully done, every image gives you the idea you're living in a stylish new society, as if your looking at the designs for the image of our own future.

Everything is big, yet the characters remain small and still interesting enough to carry the story. In the world of Gattaca you are a mere number, but in this impersonal world you actually see that the characters are not all robots in a society that has made rules by which all must live, but individuals that wish to break those rules and find their own personality in an endless sea.

Any inteligent human being that loves sci-fi must have seen this movie at least once.

Rating:
Summary: A beautifully made movie
Review: The plot in this movie was not so great - if the movie hadn't been absolutely the coolest looking movie ever and had great actors, then it would have sucked big time. But the design on the set was absolutely phenomenal - from the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings to the exciting interiors, to the old cars - all retro-futuristic and so damn cool! (going into space in the future will _obviously_ be in wool business suits, not those bulky things they have now - everyone looks better in business suits!)

The movie was a blast to watch solely for the visuals, the plot was good enough to allow you to see more cool set design.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, thought-provoking film
Review: Although one thread of this story involves space travel, it really is a "thinking person's" science fiction film (read: no explosions, chases, or firearms) that sheds a new and interesting light on discrimination. Are we really created with pre-determined limits on what we can do, or are we limited primarily by what we *believe* we can do? Or even worse, to what extent are we limited by what *others* believe we can do? Gattaca is beautifully filmed and acted and has a haunting, memorable soundtrack. This has indeed become one of my favorite films.

Rating:
Summary: Way Overrated!
Review: I love intelligent sci-fi films, and so I watched Gattaca with high expectations. It wasn't terrible; in fact, to squeeze two stars out of me says a lot. But first let's look at the "thriller" plot every other reviewer seems to applaud. Who's kidding whom? The heroine deliberately plants a clue that would lead to the hero's arrest--the same chap she's falling in love with. Why? I can't think of a single reason, except to set up an artificial plot. Later she's "relieved" that our hero "didn't do it." Well, by then I was hoping he had done it; it would have at least justified her otherwise wholly irrational attempt to frame him. OK, so there's no plot here. What else? Characterization? Hardly. It's set up as a story between two brothers, but the middle of the movie wanders around without addressing that story. Only at the beginning and end do we see that it's a story about two brothers who are rivals. Big deal--it doesn't help the movie along. I think anyone who believes this is an "intelligent" sci-fi movie must have viewed it with commercial interruptions throughout, because it has the look and feel of a movie that only makes sense in short bites. Maybe the commercials added to the futuristic quality of the movie. (Some future--although we have space travel, the people are still driving mid-90s automobiles. (Actually, it was a low budget film, so we can't expect much in the way of realism. But even in Woody Allen's low-budget "Sleeper," the transport vehicles were at least Cute. Isn't it strange that there are movies out there that are so underrated that they have to become "cult favorites" before the mainline critics take notice of them (and then adopt them as their own!), while there are some movies--Gattaca is one of them--that for whatever reason was hugely overrated. Bottom line: it's not bad, you might enjoy it, and if you go in expecting zero, you might be moderately surprised on the upside.

Rating:
Summary: DARWINISM ACTUALIZED?
Review: In a perfectionist near-future wherein biotechnology has trumped natural selection, de"gene"erate Vincent refuses to know his genetic place-that of a flawed, second class drone, meant only to labor lowly and die. He painfully, eventually, realizes his celestial dream and leaves beind the oppression of his world. But let's set aside the obvious Hitlerian overtones and wonder if perhaps genetic engineering-resulting in a theoretically improved being-isn't something to be cautiously welcomed as part of the inevitable, ever-evolving Darwinian process that is, after all, the human condition. This very intelligent film chooses to look at the dark side of genetics, only grudgingly acknowedging its potential to perhaps advance human progress light years beyond what it otherwise could. The acting is uniformly excellent and the art direction is beautifully minimal and elegant. Not to be missed by fans of provocative science fiction (fact?)

Rating:
Summary: The Darkness At The End Of The Tunnel
Review: Gattaca's most haunting and beautiful scene is a love scene, shot through an upside down camera in room with transparent walls. In the metallic, clinical and angular world of this film physical love is unnatural. Sex is an impulsive passionatte act and therefore not intune with the perfection of an intelligent, balanced, stoic and ultimately robotic populace. Afterall the person you're with could take a hair off your head, take it to a shop down the street and see if you are a "valid" person.

Vincent (Ethan Hawke) has never accepted the fact that because he was a natural, faith birth, he could never persue his dream about going to outerspace. He meets a "valid", genetically perfect Jerome (Jude Law) who despite the previlage of genetic perfection is paralysed. "There is no gene for fate" Hawke observes in his moving unintrusive narration. Jerome agrees to lend him is indentity, and in return Vincent will help him maintain his affluent lifestyle. This switch, along with a murder plot would be enough to make a decent thriller, but Gattaca only use this to hook the audience. Both Hawke and Law give the best performance of their careers in these roles. And although I could praise Gattace as one of the best sceince-fiction films I've ever seen, calling it sceince-fiction seems like a stretch.

In the near future, doctors will be able to extract the best possible child from a man and a woman. As a doctor explains to the parents in this film, "You could concieve naturally a 1000 times and never get such result, this child is you, simply the best of you". You can't argue with a line that, and I'm sure given the opportunity, most parents would choose to have their children disease free, but it would never stop there. How about physical fitness, good looks, a high I.Q., wouldn't you want to give your children all these things. It is that age old arguement of man playing God, what is particularly tragic about it these days is its inevitability. You can't stop scientist from creating alternative organs for transplant, and you can't stop them trying to wipe out cancer gentically. Afterall these are good things, paradoxically they will almost certainly be abused. Even in the world of Gattace "discrimination is illigal", but that doesn't stop the firm from using a urine sample as their interview. Sceince, humanity's great shining light will also be its downfall. Opposing sceince is undoubtly bigotry, all you can do is watch as we drift into Orwell's 1984.

As you may have guessed, this is a deeply provocative and timely film. It is also an intensly passionate one. In the history of film music, only Ennio Morricone's music for 1986's The Mission can compare with the emotional impact of Michael Nyman's score for Gattaca. Periodically his lyrical, etheral, almost mournful score is played over scenes making the film an emotional rollercoaster ride. There is a scene played under Nyman's music where Vincent and his girlfriend Irene (Uma Thurman) go to look at a field of Solar Cells. The Cells are the plants of the future, when the sunshines they bloom. Although they are magnificent, unlike the plants they don't need you to water them.

Gattaca is a magnificent and overlooked film. Essentially optimistic in its view that determination can truimph over any genetic pre-conditioning, I think its is actually more ambigious and wiser then its outcome suggests. It suggests that you may have to leave this planet to escape the clinical prejudice. But if you don't have a space ship to get on, then leaving can only mean one thing. Suicide.

Rating:
Summary: Original and inspiring
Review: Gattaca is a superb movie about science advancements in the future. The photography is breathtaking and the soundtrack is excellent. Ethan Hawke gives a great performance as does Jude Law. Overall one of the best movies to come out in 97.