REPORT ON EUROPA REPORT

Back in the Twentieth Century, when I was growing up, science fiction movies were a rare thing. You had to be on the look-out for them. I'd catch all I could – even the bad ones, which were most of them. There was a lot of talk that good science fiction movies may not even be possible.

Now science fiction movies are almost a dime a dozen. They're everywhere. It's hard to keep up with them. I must admit, I don't bother with a lot of them, even though they seem good. They're not a big deal – just another sci-fi movie.

So when I do run across one that I like – especially when I haven't seen much social media chatter about it, I gotta review it.

Europa Report is such a movie.

I remember seeing trailers a while back, thinking “that looks good.” But everybody does special effects these days. They all look good.

Then my wife and I caught it on Netflix, and were blown away.

Europa Report has a documentary look and feel that keeps making you think that it was actually shot on location, even though you know that's impossible. My brain was actually fooled into thinking it was real, while with most science fiction movies these days, in the back of my mind, I know it's all pixels dancing around. I was fooled, that is the true art.

It also has an ingenious script that cuts back and forth in time – editing, not time travel, as in the documentary structure. It builds suspense, and keeps you guessing. It was edge-of-the-seat excitement rather than, “how clever, I feel intelligent for sitting through this.”

And it's hard science fiction – a very rare thing in movies. Yeah, there are things that could be nitpicked about, but then, that's part of the fun, isn't it? Europa Report is the real thing, what people have been saying was impossible for decades.

It gives you a taste of the wonder of what really could be out there, dares to demonstrate that some things are not only worth risking your life, but dying for.

And somehow the world isn't going wild over this movie. I don't understand a lot of my fellow humans.