[CRITICAL E-CINEMA] 400 DAYS – Penelopethemovie

Since August 2015, six scientists from NASA have agreed to be locked up for a year under a dome of only eleven square meters, in order to evaluate the conditions of a trip to Mars. Advice to the claustrophobic therefore, since 400 Days is inspired by little or no understanding of this scientific project, to ensure an hour and a half of oppressive atmosphere. Moving the action in an underground shelter, and reducing the team to four astronauts, one could just as well wait for the movie from Matt Osterman, a camera broke and opportunistic, a little gem in effective and surprising, in the middle of the side of the success of science-fiction scary (Moon, Sunshine, Solaris) without, alas, be able to apply their will, because of its discrete output direct-to-video.

But from the first minutes, 400 DAYS shows the defects that will deprive progressively the show of any credibility. There can be no doubt, we are right there in front of an exploitation movie that does not at no time be the means of bearing the thinness of its budget by the road holding or the originality of a scenario. It was entitled to expect a real ambition in this production, which operates openly the vein aerospace Interstellar, Gravity and other Alone on Mars ; but very soon the dialogues dissonant and the succession of bit actors are charismatic on the screen, we put the flea in the ear about the mediocrity of this rehash of the codes and canons of genre cinema.

Basically, it is hard to believe in a plot that doesn’t choose its underlying tensions and its repercussions in terms of their credibility and their likelihood of occurrence within the world in which it takes place, but in function of their interest in the dramatic, on their possible contribution in anguish. Also, with this kind of writing story little rigorous, we are left with four astronauts who seem to be everything except psychologically balanced and ready for the experience that awaits them, since they are more driven by their feelings and their emotions, their sense of reflection and poise. If our four mads can to the rigor find their place in a camping site or a university campus for a slasher décérébré, in their outfits of astronauts, they are anything but credible.

What scientific organization would have the idea to shut up the bland Brandon Routh in the face in the nag Dane Cook, in order to assess their behavior during a trip to space ? One is murgé and ended up in police custody, the night before the start of the experiment ; the other spends his time to flirt heavily the only woman of the team and show his biceps to intimidate male rivals. What is the program in the end : how to become the first redneck in space ? And their teammates are far from raising the level, as they lose their rational minds and fall into madness after barely a half-hour of footage, where the viewer was expecting to see the hell to draw crescendo by subtle touches, as the days accumulate.

We begin, therefore, to say that we have already seen a hundred times this plot, and much better used elsewhere ; that, with its artistic direction, impersonal, and its casting implausible, 400 DAYS is less the result of a “beta version” of a project that is still looking, both in its technical means that in these resource scenarios. But the moment the disappointment is up to the resignation, Matt Osterman, director and writer of the film manages to capture our attention not only show reasons scary that clash with the mood of the first half-hour, but with particular switch of its protagonists in a different kind of story. I don divulgâcherais not what it returns, for the viewers that I have not yet discouraged, but unfortunately this sudden change of course leads to a crash fatal to the film.

“We have already seen 100 times in the plot of 400 DAYS. And much better used elsewhere.”

If even the technique ensured a fear and an atmosphere of murky, efficient, failing to be original, fans of the genre would have at least something to be put in the tooth, but the chief operator seems to have abandoned the ship and some plans are simply unreadable. Remains a scene in a dinner where there was no lack of interest by its treatment of the concept of “worrying strangeness“, but she arrives too late to save the film. In the end, Osterman seems to have divided his plot into two distinct parts, the less for the sake of originality and to overcome its inability to deal with until the very end the concept of the first part, the one of the lock-up aerospace. Why prepare items, such as, for example, the vlog that must take one of the characters to stay in touch with the outside world, and not leverage them to progressively install the fantastic elements ? I would be tempted to speak to the leaders of the film containing a replica absurd to Brandon Routh : “You take this mission too seriously.” Well, yeah, guys, such an important scientific and human, it requires a minimum seriously !

Available in DVD, Blu-ray and VOD from December 16, 2015.

Released exclusively on Syfy on march 2, 2016 20: 50.