. GATTACA
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1997 Christopher Null
I'd been looking forward to GATTACA since its clever promotions began several months ago, promising a story of a future-gone-wrong, a time when ethnic prejudice has given way to something even more frightening: genetic discrimination. It's in this setting that the genetically-inferior Vincent (played by Ethan Hawke) tries to advance his station by assuming the identity of Jerome (played by the creepy Jude Law), and putting the moves on the also-flawed Irene (Uma Thurman).
Everything goes well for awhile, and just as Vincent is about to realize his dream of going up as part of a space mission, the web starts to untangle. Here's where the problems of GATTACA start: you see, as a mystery, it really isn't much of one. The investigation into the murder of the mission director who may have known Vincent's secret is never very focused, and Alan Arkin's "Columbo"-type flatfoot seems to uncannily know where to go at every turn. By the time the investigation is over, the whole thing has felt like a put-on to waste an hour of screen time.
On the other hand, GATTACA succeeds quite well at making us feel like this could really happen. Director Andrew Niccol has put beaucous work into the set and costume designs, and the yellowish lighting makes GATTACA a real creep-out. As a cautionary tale about not messing with Mother Nature, GATTACA is similarly successful, if obvious about it.
This movie is great if you're looking for more of 1984 than STAR TREK for your brand of future-shock... and if you're willing to believe that Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman are flawed in any way, GATTACA's definitely your cup of tea.
RATING: ***1/2
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
-Christopher Null / null@sirius.com / Writer-Producer -Visit the Movie Emporium at http://www.filmcritic.com -and Null Set Productions at http://www.filmcritic.com/nullset.htm
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews