Some guys have the worst luck in the universe.  Such a guy is Mills.  He’s got a cushy job, piloting a spaceship of immigrants through the heavens.  Then a rogue meteor shower impacts his ship.  The damage is such that he is forced to crash land on a primordial planet.  All but one of his sleeping passengers fails to wake up.  The planet is home to very hostile life forms.  He must survive, with the only surviving passenger.  Then it turns out that the meteor shower portends an event so cataclysmic that most life on the planet will perish.  In about twelve hours.  It just isn’t Mills’ day.

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ film piles on the clichés and implausibilities.  When I first saw the preview, I wondered how anyone could possibly last for more than a day on this crazy planet, in these circumstances.  Now I’ve seen the film, and I’m still not convinced that survival is possible.  Even with the weapons Mills (Adam Driver) has at hand.  And yet, the story almost works.  Filmed in bayou country, this primordial planet looks suitably alien, and yet suitably familiar.  The predators are appropriately predatory, although there should have been more than just one big bug.  Mills is smart and methodical, and pretty darn tough, if not very demonstrative.

What the film really needs is a sense of immediacy.  Most of the drama unfolds in desultory fashion, with an obvious plan forward, and few surprises.  To be genuinely effective, the story should have taken a few unexpected turns, and it should have been far more brutal.  The communication issues between Mills and his passenger (Ariana Greenblatt) pose one such possibility, yet most of this relationship is as formulaic as one would think.  This movie needed more imagination.  ☆ ☆.  20 April 2023.