I really need to stop watching whatever Netflix original film first pops up on my screen, and sci-fi movie-makers need to stop trying to turn Sam Worthington into weird looking aliens.
After watching only 20 minutes of "Game Over, Man!" I knew I could find a better use of my time. So I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. "The Titan" is the latest nail that Netflix has hammered into their sci-fi baseball bat, and for some reason, I keep letting them swing it at my face.
It isn't a terrible movie, but it is bland and unimportant. This is largely due to a bland leading performance from Sam Worthington, a bland script with not a single memorable human conversation or interaction, and a bland reveal that is mostly spoiled by the movie's own poster. Sam Worthington ends up looking like one of the chalk-white CGI orcs from "The Hobbit" trilogy.
All of this culminates in a climax devoid of any excitement or concern for the characters involved and a resolution that proves the movie could have been twenty minutes long. There is dead air in "The Titan" than the actual moon Titan.
Sam Worthington is Rick Janssen, a military man who has a history of surviving in near-impossible circumstances. For this reason, he and other soldiers and scientists from around the world have been chosen to be part of a military experiment.
It is the 2040's, and the Earth will not be able to sustain human life for another generation. A corrupt scientist (Tom Wilkinson) thinks that the best option is to genetically engineer humans so that they can survive on Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the only other rock in our solar system with an atmosphere.
The film at least does a good job of making itself sound like it is grounded in real science, though it's still mostly gibberish. He lies to the test subjects, excluding the details about forced evolution and physical mutations and simply telling them that they will be superhuman. He also fails to mention what we plan to eat on Titan, but that was just an inquiry of my own.
The whole arc of the film involves these test subjects realizing that they're changing, and perhaps for the worst. Taylor Schilling delivers the best performance as Rick's wife because she is one of few actors who decides to move her face, but she is still confined to a script bereft of natural dialogue and, oddly enough, almost any music.
The first 20 minutes felt especially off. The script is bare, making characters entering or exiting scenes feel very awkward. The lack of answers to questions, the lack of basic responses, and the forced introductions of characters makes it all very alien. Our protagonist is a grumbly, bland man who refuses to respond to anything he sees or is told. This isn't all his fault.
The character of Rick Janssen is so bland that even the most charismatic actor would've delivered a sub-par performance. There isn't much more to say, other than you should learn from my mistakes.
