Thursday, April 26, 2012

Cargo (2009) movie Review

Cargo is a surprisingly good Swiss(German Language) Scifi movie.  It is one of those turn the lights down and tv up type movies that is very big on tension. 
 
The story follows Dr. Portmann as she is hired on to a cargo ship making a deep space run.  She is doing this so she can make enough money to buy passage to Rhea.  Rhea is the replacement to Earth as humanity has finally ruined the planet.  Each member of the crew does a shift awake to monitor the ship.  During Dr. Portmann’s shift, strange things start happening.  It was somewhat predictable as I was pretty sure where the story was going. 
 
The performances can’t be faulted.  Everyone sold their performances well enough.  Nothing stand out in either direction.
 
The CG effects were really a crap shoot.  In parts they were absolutely stunning. In other parts it was fairly obvious and pulled me out of the film.  Keep in mind that this is a very effects driven movie that wasn’t made in Hollywood and it is far more impressive. 
 
Overall I was pretty impressed by this CG heavy, foreign, scifi film.  While the story wasn’t earth shattering it was passable and the writing kept the tension pretty high throughout the movie.  I don’t usually comment on the score, but it was pretty amazing.  It added to the tension and sounded excellent.  I think most people will enjoy this movie.  I don’t think it is rated as it is a foreign film, but it seems like it would fall in the PG13 realm. 
 
On a side note.  I watched this movie on my new XBMC setup.  If you “buy” downloadable movies or rip your own collection on to your hard drive, XBMC is a must have program.  It makes browsing your movies a much more enjoyable experience. Not to mention that It seems like I get a better picture from it than I do my DVD player.  But that might be because I have a crappy DVD player. 
 

7 comments:

DEZMOND said...

sounds interesting, you have to remember that European films are always shot with budgets million times smaller than the US ones, so their CGI actually looks amazing having that in mind :)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'll have to look for it on NetFlix.

Reid Kemper said...

I never heard of it until your post, but I looked at Japanese trailer of the movie and liked it. It was weird listening to two foreign languages (announcer and actors) with no idea what they were saying.

Budd said...

Dez-given the budget, they worked majic.

Alex-is it on netflix?

Reid- I may have to start watching Japanese trailers for foriegn films. Sounds fun.

Nate Wilson said...

I hadn't even heard of this one. And I used to be so ahead of the game, pre-baby. I'll have to take a look, at least after I get past the other sci-fi/horror films already in my queue...

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

I remember this one well. I was happy to be somewhere different and interesting for a change.

Pat Tillett said...

I've never heard of it, but think I'd like to see it. Just from what you said I'm going to try and find it. thanks!