Today’s quick review: Stowaway. Just hours into a two-year voyage to Mars, Marina Barnett (Toni Collette), Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick), and David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim) discover they have a fourth passenger: Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson), a launch engineer who was on board the ship when it took off. As the crew takes stock of their new situation, they come to the unsettling conclusion that there is not enough oxygen to support them all.
Stowaway is a science fiction thriller about an extra passenger who jeopardizes a mission to Mars. Stowaway deals with the moral dilemma of a situation where one person must die so three others can live. Unlike other movies about disasters in space, Stowaway lets the scenario drive the plot. Instead of injecting artificial drama or unnecessary action sequences, the movie focuses on its characters and the simple problem of what they should do.
Stowaway is a streamlined film. The story takes place entirely aboard the ship, with a four-person cast and no extraneous plot elements. The crew of the ship are calm, professional, and humane, bypassing the usual cruelty seen in other life-or-death situations. Stowaway also cuts short the chain of partial solutions and close calls found in similar films. The characters do have a few options, but they are tightly constrained.
Still, Stowaway does not squeeze as much out of its premise as it could, and different viewers will want it to go in different directions. For action fans, it can be a slow watch with only one or two sequences of consequence. Fans of dark moral thrillers may be disappointed in the altruistic nature of the characters and the slack they are given. Finally, the characters are likable but not strong enough to leave a lasting impression.
Stowaway is an unusually clean take on the kind of situation addressed in passing by other sci-fi films. While it misses out on both the tense action and the powerful emotional moments the genre has to offer, it avoids a number of key pitfalls and manages to tell a tense and engaging story. Fans of minimalistic sci-fi who don’t mind moderately slow pacing will get the most out of the movie. Others will have mixed results.
For another minimalistic thriller about survival in space, try Gravity. For one with an even greater emphasis on engineering and problem-solving, check out The Martian. For a desperate space mission with more science fiction elements, try Interstellar, Sunshine, or Armageddon.
[5.6 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9203694/). I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for a simple but effective story.