Low budget sci-fi is something of an endangered species as high-tech gimmickry takes over the screen, but while there will always be a place for mega-buck blockbusters such as Avatar, it has often been the edgy shoestring films that have made the running in developing the genre. Think of the first Mad Max and the first Terminator movie, both groundbreakers that where made for relatively little money, but had tremendous influence.
Now the term “shoestring budget” can refer to a film like District 9, which was reportedly made for US$30 million. Cargo made do with less than US$5 million. Though the Swiss-made science fiction thriller manages to build a lot of atmosphere with very limited means and throws around some interesting ideas, it is too derivative to make a mark.
Cargo tells the story of Laura Portmann (Anna-Katharina Schwabroh), a medic on a deep space cargo ship purportedly resupplying the colony of Rhea, a new paradise built to relocate human populations as Earth becomes increasingly uninhabitable. Portmann is an outsider among the crew, as is Samuel Decker (Martin Rapold), a security officer added to the ship’s personnel to deal with terrorist attacks by a group who believes that Earth should not be abandoned.
photo courtesy of Jun Long International
The opening sequence is an advertisement singing the praises of Rhea, and Portmann herself has taken her current job as a way of saving money to get to this new Jerusalem. It doesn’t take long to realize that all is not as it seems, and Portmann needs to quickly work out who she can trust. There are echoes of a slew of sci-fi thrillers, most obviously Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), but also, in its environmental issues, Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running (1972), and some of its compositions hark back to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter have proved adept disciples in following the work of these master filmmakers, but Cargo is largely unoriginal and never manages to emerge from under its antecessors’ shadows. Given budgetary restraints, the directors have achieved some remarkable feats in creating the looming spaces of an inter-galactic cargo ship, working hard to build a sense of dread as a straightforward mission gradually turns into a nightmare of discovery about the unreality of the world Portmann has taken for granted.
There are far too many moments when the motivation of the characters seems unclear or when they act in a way designed to simply carry the plot forward. The slow pace of the film leaves plenty of time to think about all the links that don’t make much sense. A romance between Portmann and Decker utterly fails to convince, and as this has to serve as the emotional climax of the film, it hammers the final nail into the coffin of Cargo’s aspirations.
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
Eric Finkelstein is a world record junkie. The American’s Guinness World Records include the largest flag mosaic made from table tennis balls, the longest table tennis serve and eating at the most Michelin-starred restaurants in 24 hours in New York. Many would probably share the opinion of Finkelstein’s sister when talking about his records: “You’re a lunatic.” But that’s not stopping him from his next big feat, and this time he is teaming up with his wife, Taiwanese native Jackie Cheng (鄭佳祺): visit and purchase a
April 7 to April 13 After spending over two years with the Republic of China (ROC) Army, A-Mei (阿美) boarded a ship in April 1947 bound for Taiwan. But instead of walking on board with his comrades, his roughly 5-tonne body was lifted using a cargo net. He wasn’t the only elephant; A-Lan (阿蘭) and A-Pei (阿沛) were also on board. The trio had been through hell since they’d been captured by the Japanese Army in Myanmar to transport supplies during World War II. The pachyderms were seized by the ROC New 1st Army’s 30th Division in January 1945, serving
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) last week offered us a glimpse of the violence it plans against Taiwan, with two days of blockade drills conducted around the nation and live-fire exercises not far away in the East China Sea. The PRC said it had practiced hitting “simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities.” Taiwan confirmed on Thursday that PRC Coast Guard ships were directed by the its Eastern Theater Command, meaning that they are assumed to be military assets in a confrontation. Because of this, the number of assets available to the PRC navy is far, far bigger
RSS