I’m beginning to wonder if any of us will live to see James Cameron’s Avatar sequels; perhaps not the most serious problem we have right now, but at the rate we’re going, there may not be any cinemas to show the franchise in. So the sight of Sam Worthington morphing into something space-age in The Titan will have to do for now; Worthington has kept the leading man roles going in the interim, and this sci-fi thriller about space exploration is a decent enough, undemanding home entertainment for today’s world of couch-potatoes.
Except Lennart Ruff’s film has a few surprises up its sleeve; although the focus switches, Worthington’s aspiring space explorer arguably isn’t the main character here; it’s Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black as his wife. Although The Titan flirts with being a generically-modified super-soldier thriller like The Guest, or a updated Alien rip like Life or Sputnik, or even a personal drama like Proxima, it finally settles for being a Frankenstein/Shape of Water type love story, and that’s probably for the best.
Rick Janssen (Worthington) is heading to Titan, although neither he not the film actually get there. Instead, we’re looking at the training programme, with seem to involve astronauts getting injections of animal hormones to create colonists capable of survival. So Janssen’s wife Abigail (Schilling) begins to suspect something his wrong, and we have an Astronaut’s Wife scenario whereby she tries to get to the bottom of what’s going on inside her husband.
Of course, it’s not hard to figure out that Martin Collingwood (Tom Wilkinson), who is overseeing the mission, is up to no good; he uses various kinds of climate change chat as an excuse for his experiments, so we know that he’s on a highway to hell. ‘ There hasn’t been anything like this since the Nazis’ one character complains, and The Titan actually makes a fair point about progress; are there limits to what we’ll do to ourselves to survive?
Popping up on different streaming services in different countries, The Titan has enjoyed an audience specifically via Netflix, and that’s probably right because it’s an easy to watch mixture of sci-fi, horror and yes, romance. This version of 2048 actually doesn’t look too bad considering what’s happened in 2020, and even if you have to become a monster to go there, Titan sounds quite appealing as a destination. This is a glossy, accessible slice of sci-fi that, while it settles for a conventional resolution, at least entertains while the gap between blockbusters lengthens.
Signature Entertainment presents The Titan on Amazon Prime Video 2nd October
Thanks to Signature for access to this title.
Glad to see Worthington back in the saddle. A decent leading man with too few decent roles.
He’s fine, actually, just underused as far as I can see…
Finally the comments section is ironing out again…so glad for that.
On a more serious note: I definitely am afraid fro the future of cinemas. Being the movie buff that I am there is nothing better than experiencing a movie on the big screen. For me that really was always an adventure, and I made a whole daytrip out of it. The fear of not having that back maybe….that makes me sad..
As for this film…strangely enough I have passed on this on several occassions as I’ve seen numerous people give it a bad review. Since I trust your reviews a lot, I’m going to give this one a go. Maybe even this weekend! 😀
If it’s on your stream, and it’s on Prime in the UK, Netflix elsewhere, it’s worth a shot; I didn’t expect much, but got quite enthusaistic at times. But yes, I’m fearing for the world’s concentration spans are going to diminish; going to the cinema during the pandemic was one of the fes things you could put your phone, and the pandemic, out of mind. Not sure how the world will work without a little adventure…
Yeah…so true😢 I really miss going to the cinemas. I was a real regular, usually going two or even three times in a month depending on which movies were out. It’s sad to think that might never happen again 😢
As for Titan, it’s on Netflix for me, so I might give it a watch this sunday. If I do, I will let you know😀
Just confirming what Fraggle says, the comments from the notification are back! (and from the reader too I gather).
I still haven’t watched the Guest, even though I remember your review of it.
Personally, if we never get any sequels to Avatar I’ll survive just fine. I haven’t seen the original and I highly doubt I’ll ever bother with it. I should probably see if you have a review of it so I can make disparaging comments on that post 😉
As for this, this seems like the kind of movie I “might” try if I saw it in the recommended for you section of prime and I needed some background noise to keep me busy while I wrote stuff online.
It’s a bit better than I expected, I guess because the human story is quite involving. But probably at home on streaming…and no, I didn’t much care for Avatar, hence no review…
I’ve heard it said the at its heart, SF is all about the human condition.
And bummer about Avatar. I was kind of looking forward to having a good rip of a comment 😀
Go on, I’ll pretend I love Avatar to set you up. Best film ever and I want to live there!
I really appreciate the thought, but I’m too beat after this week. It was a 48hr week and it was physical. I am literally sagging on the couch just zoning out.
Sorry to let you down 🙁
Opportunity will arise again, get some rest, my friend!
Blah.
🤣🤣 sorry about the blah I am in the reader so wasn’t expecting it to go through after the past couple of days! Anyhoo this one sounds OK to do the ironing to. All these movie makers putting back the release of their blockbusters is killing the cinema industry here, Cineworld franchise has just closed all its venues for at least 6 months for that reason as no one is going to see old stuff. Lots of people out of work.
Thanks for this comment, really made my day!
I said sorry!!
And I apologise for sarcasm, but to be honest, this film was better than it sounded, as a Sam Worthington space movie. One for a heavy load of ironing…
The blah was just a test comment and not a reflection of the movie, TBH I like the sound of this, I like space movies 🙂
Aha, that helps, and yes, this film is worth a spin…