Premise: A three-person crew on a trip to Mars discovers a fourth person mistakenly on the vessel and realize they don't have the resources for all four to survive.
It gets hard to keep all these space movies straight. Quiz me on the casts of Life, Ad Astra, Interstellar, Gravity, The Martian, The Midnight Sky, and Stowaway, and I won't do well. These movies aren't all built the same. The Martian and Gravity are very distinct in my mind. Some of the others get hazy. I do appreciate that they all have their differences though. Ad Astra is more of a space voyage. Passengers is more about the isolation than the space. The Midnight Sky has the pull to go home. I'll happily watch all of these movies, because I like the genre well enough. I'm invested enough in this kind of movie to appreciate the small differences. That could be a barrier for entry for other people though for whom all space movies are the same.
Stowaway has to lay a lot of pipe to get to the core problem of the movie. It establishes the three-person space mission manned by Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, and Daniel Dae Kim. It has to explain how Shamier Anderson could end up on the ship by accident in a way that sounds plausible. Then it has to establish all the reasons why they can't produce enough oxygen to keep all four alive. Once it sets all that up, the movie is quite intriguing. I like space movies about how to fix a problem with only the resources available. The movie sets up the personalities and motivations of everyone well, so no one really seems like a villain. Collette's training makes her too valuable to sacrifice herself and her injury prevents her from taking the risks she otherwise would. Kim is afraid of everyone dying because they hesitated to make the hard decision. Kendrick knows she couldn't live with herself if everything possible wasn't tried. Anderson has to live with what started as a happy accident turning into a dangerous liability. Even if I could predict the basic beats of the movie, the premise has enough intrigue to keep me invested anyway.
This would've been a nice movie to see on the big screen. As a rule, any mission happening in open space has a grandeur and tension that few other scenarios can match. I knew something was going to go wrong, but I didn't know what or how wrong. I knew there was no chance all 4 would survive by the end. They did surprise me with who didn't last though.
The moral dilemma and some great late set pieces make up for some early issues getting everything set up interestingly, so I'm mostly favorable about the movie. Besides, what kind of monster would I have to be to not appreciate two hours with Toni Collette and Anna Kendrick? Daniel Dae Kim and Shamier Anderson are good too.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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