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Movie Review

400 Days (2015)

daysDirector: Matt Osterman

Writer: Matt Osterman (Screenplay)

Starring: Caity Lotz, Tom Cavanagh, Brandon Routh, Dane Cook, Ben Feldman, Grant Bowler, Fernanda Romero, Sally Pressman, Sara Tomko

 

Plot: “400 Days” centres on four astronauts sent on a simulated mission to a distant planet to test the psychological effects of deep space travel. Locked away for 400 days, the crew’s mental state begins to deteriorate when they lose all communication with the outside world. Forced to exit the ship, they discover that this mission may not have been a simulation after all.

 

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

 

Verdict: Potentially Great

 

Story: 400 Days starts with our four main characters Captain Theo (Routh), Emily (Lotz), Cole (Cook) and Bug (Feldman) being put in a social simulation for 400 days to show what it will be like to travel through space over long periods of time. We follow the four as they get put hiccups as the learn to manage them after losing connect to mission control early on but it is dealing with the psychological side of the mission that will test them the most.

When they open the hatch they find themselves questioning what happened but more worrying where they are now.

400 days really seems to be a film that is two different incomplete films, the first half is all psychological but when they leave the hatch it turns into a post-apocalyptic film that never really ends up being dealt with. Each side of the story works well as a single film but both don’t have enough time to really pull off what is really happen. As for the ending it is all left up to you what you think happens which doesn’t help and what happens to two of the character never really gets answered either. This has problems but really could have been great.

 

Actor Review

 

Caity Lotz: Emily is the medical officers who is also the former partner of Theo who has to make sure the crew remains sane over the course of the mission as well as keeping the medication up to date. Caity gives us a solid performance but really doesn’t get a chance shine.

 

Brandon Routh: Theo is the captain of the mission; he has to make the big decision with the information provided by his crew. He doesn’t want to be on the mission and has been on a four-day bender before the mission. Brandon continued to show why he is struggling to live up to the hype he once had early in his career.

 

Dane Cook: Cole is the engineer on the mission, he is easily the most unpopular on the crew and his cocky attitude leads him to become distant to the rest of the crew. Dane is another actor in this film who hasn’t made much of his career and even with this choice because he tries to do something different.

 

Ben Feldman: Bug is the brains of the crew making all the hard decisions and is clearly the smartest of the four crew members on the ship. He had to leave his young family behind for the mission which haunts him every day of the mission. Ben does a good job even if he does end up being a very generic character for the genre.

 

Support Cast: 400 days has a supporting you only see half way through the film but they end up being very generic.

 

Director Review: Matt Osterman – Matt brings us a great idea that doesn’t quite get pulled off effectively.

 

Mystery: 400 days keep you guessing what is actually happening to our characters.

Sci-Fi: 400 days puts our character in the experiment which would include space travel and a post-apocalyptic world.

Thriller: 400 days does keep us guessing from start to finish.

Settings: 400 days has two good settings the space ship which creates the isolation and the town the end up in that shocks.
Special Effects: 400 days uses the effects for certain moments but tries to keep everything need to the  minimum.

Suggestion: 400 days is one to try, it does have a few flaws but you can see a couple of good points. (Try It)

 

Best Part: The ideas are good.

Worst Part: Not enough time for each story, both sides could have been short to increase the second one.

 

Believability: No

Chances of Tears: No

Chances of Sequel: No

Post Credits Scene: No

 

Oscar Chances: No

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

 

Overall: Something Missing but good ideas being created.

Ratingcard

By Darren Lucas

Big Film fan and general entertainment fan

32 replies on “400 Days (2015)”

Thought it was very good movie, kept my attention, however, I was very disappointed with the ending. Too many unanswered questions,

I liked 400 days. Ending not so sure??? Bugs me not knowing for sure. Considered artistic by the movie makers!!?? A few options but… One theory. There was a catastrophy. The lights and the recording at the end congratulating them was pre recorded to come on exactly at 400 days regardless of their mental state or survival? It’s got us thinking about it anyhow!

Not a bad movie, right up until the ending, which was absolutely non existent and an utter cop out, thus making everything that came before totally pointless.

Like those movies with endings where the film just stops? Like films that make you guess what happens next, one or the other thing. Like that crap and this dung pile of a movie is for you. It’s movies like this that leave me thinking that I could film and release my own movie. This movie is so bad that falling asleep during the film would be better for you. If you see this in the theater, your one fool… But you probably had good seats.

Here’s my theory, movie ran out of money and over schedule so they trimmed out two main characters for starters and then filmed what they could at the local town. Yea, light at the end was inspiring but killing a dude just seconds earlier can’t be faked, my guess is he cornholed her for the spftporn uncut edition and then they got served up later on in the butchers town. Oh wait that was the low budget, shitty directing end. Who actually cares, Movie sucked balls.

Good film but it certainly left me wanting a more solid ending with more answers. Overall a good film though.

I really despise this and these kind of movies. Films that makes no sense or has no sense of logic is to me just a waste of my precious time. This is just pure shit. Abstract piece of crap that makes the writer, and director, feel they are profound artists creating art valuable art.

I thought the ending was obvious given that the overseer is again on the screen congratulating them along with the hatch showing sunlight when it was dark only seconds before. And if you are wondering if they were hallucinating; of course they were. If the moon exploded into dust our atmosphere would reject it entirely and why would it be headed for us anyway instead of any other direction in the galaxy?

I thought the end was where the film began, so went back to the start to see if it said something like “400 days earlier”.. but it didnt.

This movie is definitely NOT garbage. In fact, it did a better job than 99% of movies that try to make things strange feel strange. The acting was actually good, particularly the town folk. Another good thing is how many options there were for what was really going on. I think the most likely thing is something like an extreme hallucination, maybe shared. Given that they spent OVER A YEAR in a box… No sun, no other people. We should hope 4 human beings could perform that well. We have no idea what 400 days of that kind of isolation could do to humans, and it is a major concern in current space exploration affairs, which makes the movie spot on with current events and our fears.

This movie was good. I recommend it. If nothing else, as a way to practice letting go of the need for spoon fed answers.

Yeah right, this was the dumbest movie ever in the history of all dumb ass movies… I’m the biggest scifi head ever but this movie suck green donkey d@&ks

I agree. The movie sucked. characters werent believable. Seemed rushed. The love interest seemed fake. And the ending…come on. How could they end it like that.

It had a lot of promise to be a good movie but fell flat very quickly, reminding me very much of a ham sandwich: not very exciting or memorable. It was basically a story of three astronauts who, judging from what I’ve just witnessed clearly don’t have the mental stability to be astronauts. Oh and they’re trapped in a tin can under the ground with a severly unstable Dane Cook. That’s an hour and a half of my life I’ll never get back.

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