The Final Land (Das letzte Land) (2019) (Final Voyage)
IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 52m, rated 5.0 by 629 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: Deutsch.
Tagline: Odd couple in space.
Verdict: All trip, no arrival.
When apprehended the escaped prisoner learns that the guard would like to leave the gulag with him. The prison is a camp on an uncharted and desolate planet with relentless sandstorms and when on the run Prisoner found, disinterred by the current storm, a downed very small space craft with which he was tinkering when Guard arrived. It still seems to be working, and together they get it going. Where? Well, anywhere but here would be a good choice. Buckle up!
They don’t trust one another but neither has a choice, because both are needed to keep the rust bucket going. Most Sy Fy space craft are sleek ultra moderne spick and span CGIs, but not this one. It is beaten, battered, and bewildered with leaking fluids, hissing pipes, blinking lights, screens that go off and on, cabin heat fluctuates wildly. It is also claustrophobic, one tiny cockpit with one seat. Nor are the two of them any cleaner, neater, or tidier. Both are begrimed, whiskered, and in rags with greasy mops of hair. No manicured fingernails evident here, as is so often the case in Hollywood efforts to portray filth.
While Guard is intent on keeping the tub flying to get away, Prisoner begins to wonder how the craft got there and what happened to the crew. He reads the log entries but many have been corrupted; their fragments suggest … something. Cue the eerie music about here.
***
It is intense and glacial but I found it kept my interest, but not one for fans of blow ‘em ups. It avoids a common pitfall of piling in long and pointless backstories of the characters to make the audience relate to them. What we have to relate to here is the foreground predicament.
The odd coupling is a well travelled trope, remember Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier on the run in The Defiant Ones (1958) or Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu in Tais Toi! (2003), and many others.