WHAT’S IT ABOUT
A three-person crew on a mission to Mars faces an impossible choice when an unplanned passenger jeopardizes the lives of everyone on board.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Stowaway is marketed as a thriller, but you slowly realize it’s all drama after the first fifteen minutes. The three-person crew consisting of Marina Barnett, the ship commander, Zoe Levenson, a medical researcher, and David Kim, the ship’s biologist, are on a two-year mission to Mars. Shortly after takeoff, the commander discovers Michael Adams, out cold and in need of medical attention. This was when things got interesting, but the pace of the movie was still a bit stagnant. Since this is a drama, there’s a lot of time spent on character development. The only problem is, nobody cares. Everyone except the accidental stowaway is gifted with zero personality, and after a while, even Michael is forgettable. The whole idea that an entire space station was so preoccupied, they forgot the safety measures that allowed an employee to be overlooked. Additionally, this was a mission to Mars. A more reason to have extraordinarily stringent measures to analyze and prevent any unnecessary cost-inducing actions. But for argument’s sake, let us assume someone was able to “show up” surprisingly on a multi-million dollar shuttle after takeoff. You would then need to forget about those expensive instruments that can detect the bodies aboard the ship. If you can excuse all of that plus more (so much more), you would then need to ignore the lackluster performances of the only four people involved in this film. If you knew you were on a 3-person shuttle with resources now being recalculated for four people, there should have been more stress, more drama, more everything. After nearly 2-hours and a final weak effort to save a very dull movie, Stowaway ends with you wondering how this got past quality control at Netflix and why did you sit there and watch it?
OUR RATING – A SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY 4