Stranded (Naufraghi)

I wish there were more science-fiction films like this one being made today.

I can't understand all the negativity towards this flick! Here's a modest little film that doesn't depend on huge special effects and gratuitous action sequences in order to tell a cracking little story, with enough twists and turns to keep an old sci-fi fan like myself guessing until the end.

The premise is certainly nothing we haven't had before (think "Mission to Mars", or "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"), but this particular storyline was dense and well paced, no loose ends, everything for a purpose.

The other aspect of the movie I liked was the atmosphere that it managed to build through, what I think, are all the things that people have criticized it for.

It had a sense of calm, other-worldliness, to which the non-US accents, and at times off-beat delivery by some of the actors contributed. The dialog is more naturalistic than in a big-budget Hollywood action sci-fi flick, and this may be why some people found it "weird".

Some of the dialog was a bit corny, but I think deliberately - a little tip of the hat to earlier tales of that ilk (one of the characters conspicuously starts quoting from "John Carter of Mars" at one point, and we feel we're in an entirely different movie for a moment)

The sedate narration from the main actress, the gorgeous locations shots, and even the interior of the Martian complex with its mysterious technology, all contributed to a dream-like and alien quality invoked by this movie.

Great fun!

Rating - 10 out of 10.