Dark Matter (2008)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I'm not sure if the ending was so terrible due to lack of budget...or just terrible story telling. Either way....don't let the known actors in this film be your reason for watching it, as even their presence cannot redeem the ending of this film . It was obvious what yet needed to happen to vindicate the main character....and to punish the professor who all along was being built up as a jealous man trying to keep a dead theory in play for his own personal gains....but this you will not see....instead of the last 35-40 minutes of the film.....you see a murder suicide for a "Quick and cheap wrap!" Just another film dumped on the market in hopes of retrieving it's initial investment....which I seriously doubt it did.

For a film based on a true story, it could have been much better, much deeper, much more involving. This movie is overly simplistic, too straightforward. Everything is black or white, good or bad. Reality is never like this. A pity really, the premise is actually fascinating. The screenplay should have stuck much more to the truth, to actual events, they should have tried to portrait the characters faithfully, without trying to 'simplify' things for the viewer, to make the film more 'stylistically viable'.Oh yes, and this is one of the few movies (if not the only one) where Merryl Streeps presence was totally unnoticeable, if not unnecessary.

After a few minutes of watching this movie you realize its tempo is not the tempo of an American film, and despite the fact that it is an American product, the mind behind it is oriental. Completely. In reality one is watching an oriental film shot in the States, with a mixed cast of American and Chinese (japanese also?) actors. Everybody is excellent in his or her role and the direction is flawless. I think I'm not the only one to have noticed immediately when envy started raising its ugly head, and from then on the outcome is quite predictable.Even so, it's a beautiful film from beginning to end, with a particular calmness in all the scenes. The episode with the cosmetic line is quite pathetic and both actors are just sublime in it. They say that we make all those plans for our future and destiny (or whatever you call it) comes and throws everything to the wind. The oriental way to show us that, as subtle as it is in this film, is a thousand times more effective and overwhelming than displaying the usual Hollywood fireworks.

I thought the movie was interesting and well made, but had a lot of negative messages in it. I felt it was very anti-Western and pro-Chinese. Little self criticism comes from Chinese films, so it's hard to be impressed with the film overall. They do disguise the sentiments of the movie well, because the main character is at first thrilled to be in America; and is very polite.For starters, all the students that seem to be studying Cosmology at the College seem to be Chinese. This might be partly justified since Asians tend to do well in math in US schools.What bothered me was how familiar the film was to other Chinese movies with anti-Western sentiment. All the white people in this movie seem to be jerks or stupid, except the woman played by Meryl Streep; who happens to be heavily into Chinese culture. Having personally been told by an Asian that Americans all put their parents into nursing homes, I didn't enjoy it being repeated in the movie.In the end, the main character of the film shoots the Chinese guy who converted to Christianity; then three white people who held him back in his academic pursuits; then himself. By the movie's end, I considered it pretty lame.