Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Europa Report’

Written by Scott Edwards 

​Learning never ends, especially when you get older. You might put the books down, but there is so much more to life than just what you learned in school and several things that school will not prepare you for. For those who always like to keep their ear to the ground and find out as much as they possibly can, I have to applaud you since it seems to be a lost skill set over the years. It is much easier to learn things at your own convenience rather than having to learn it on the spot when you don’t have time to truly understand what is happening around you.

With the discovery of water on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa, the space agency is ready to get a ship into orbit and see if other life can be found in the universe. Being the most significant manned mission in history, all sorts of records are being written along the way. The ship is loaded with everything the crew could possibly need on their adventure to another planet and as the mission starts, it is a blinding success. But something that good cannot last forever as the ship suffers its first loss on the mission when the communications go down. Not being able to communicate with anyone back on Earth, the crew decides to move on with their mission to the water covered moon and find the results that they are looking for. 

Losing one member of the crew while trying to fix their communication array, the crew sees how dangerous the mission will be without setting foot on the moon. But with Europa in their sights, they cannot turn back no matter the cost. Landing on the moon, the crew is miles off of where they are supposed to be, but not being able to afford another burn with their engines for fear of not being able to escape its gravity, they have to set up and get to work.  While strange lights are seen on the surface of the small moon, it is chalked up to being solar flares and the crew continues with their work. 
 
Finding signs of life on the moon in the ice, the crew is excited to prove that life does exist on another planet and are ready to return home, but when a fuel line freezes preventing them from getting off of the moon, all hell breaks loose. When the strange lights that they have seen under the ice start to target one crew member after another, it is only a matter of time before they find out that the life they have been seeking may be more hostile than they previously believed.

This is an interesting look at the dangers of going to outer space when not knowing what you are really looking for. With radiation, extreme cold and an alien threat, it would be hard to imagine why anyone would want to be an astronaut that lands on a foreign surface. But for the sake of discovery and gaining knowledge about something that has never been seen before, I can see the appeal.  This movie was wonderfully acted, I just did not like how the story jumped around so much from day to day or month to month.  Even though I am not a huge fan of flashbacks, I think it might have fitted better in this movie, rather than it being a found footage space/alien movie.  But besides that, it was a good ride and I hope that we do not discover an alien race anytime soon since we really have no idea what they are capable of. Happy Viewing.

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