Cargo starts out promising. The acting is decent with believable characters, the atmosphere is incredible (reminds me of Alien), and there aren't any big complaints to be had as things get moving. The plot accelerates nicely and the film rolls along smoothly. For a somewhat low-budget film (~5 million USD) this is well done.
The plot is essentially this: In the distant future, the Earth has become uninhabitable and people live on space stations until they can afford to go to a Utopian planet named Rhea. Cargo centers around a spaceship ferrying building materials from Earth's orbit to a distant space station (designated "42") which is supposed to be a waypoint-in-progress, although things don't quite go as planned.
--MINOR SPOILERS--
Unfortunately, many important points are never actually explained: how the Earth's ecosystem was destroyed, how the space stations were built, how people were moved there from Earth, when Rhea was found, what happened on Rhea, etc. There's a LOT of missing background information and this detracts from the film.
The CPR scene is just embarrassingly bad. The ladder scene not long after is unnecessarily dramatized. The crew members of the ship don't seem to remember that the cargo moves (supposedly to avoid freezing?) and that it could be dangerous to investigate the cargo bay. So there's plot hole number one.
Aside from these two bits, and the emerging this-doesn't-make-sense love story between Laura/Decker, the movie continues to do well. Then some bigger problems begin to arise.
--MAJOR SPOILERS--
When the stowaway is discovered and dies, Laura decides to not wonder who shot him. Instead she finds pictures and video of Decker and the stowaway, who somehow inexplicably have built a farm on Earth. It's never explained how they travel between Earth and the space stations, or how Decker got his position and ended up on the ship.
The colonization of Rhea turned out to be a failure and a space station was built orbiting it. As people arrive at the planet, they're hooked up to a simulator on the space station instead of being brought out of cryo-sleep and sent to the planet surface (as they would have expected). This process is flawless enough that no one notices.
The first problem here is that this isn't made too clear. The other problems are HOW and WHY? Nobody seems to operate the station (which we assume is the aforementioned 42, but there's no way to tell for sure)... so is the process automated? The unloading of cargo from the ships appears to be automatic, but someone or something would have to open the containers and hook people up to the simulator. We never see how this done and it's difficult to imagine that everything would be automated. Leaving all those people and all that technology alone without people to even perform maintenance or anything? The people in the simulation seem to be decomposing so there definitely isn't much - if any - upkeep. Shipping more people to this space station seems like a gargantuan mistake.
As for the "why," this is important. Since it's never explained how the colonization of Rhea failed, it must have been pretty catastrophic in order to justify building a space station to house everyone. But why stay near Rhea? It takes YEARS to travel from Earth to Rhea, which is a massive consumption of time and resources. What's the point of keeping 42 so far away from Earth? It would have been much cheaper to build it in Earth's solar system. The government could control space travel to the point where no one would find out what was going on.
So we don't know what happened on Rhea or why people were put in a simulator, why 42 is so far away from Earth, among other things. But wait, it gets worse.
The plan to blow up the antennae after entering the simulation is a bit silly. First Laura has an issue with her thrusters, but she's conveniently found and saved by Decker. When she's exiting the simulation he gives her his fuel and tells her to go on without him, because the ship could leave at any moment. Laura had a problem with her navigation/thrusters, though, not fuel. There's no guarantee that she can make her way to the ship, and probably never will if there's actually a problem with her suit. Why is the ship leaving so soon, anyway? Is it programmed to drop off the cargo and leave? That seems stupid in case something goes wrong.
Decker says "I love you" even though there isn't any reason for it and his bond to Laura is tenuous at best, then he spins off into the planet and obviously dies. When Laura enters the ship, she's attacked by the current captain, the last remaining crew member, who amazingly finds an axe out of nowhere and swings it around with no regard for... well, any part of her environment. Because the film is being run into the ground with horrible writing, she dies. Laura is the only person left now, along with the little girl who never has a single line of dialogue and trusts strangers way too easily. Who's flying the ship now? The computer? How? What's going to happen to Laura when she gets back to Earth's space stations? Thrown in jail, most likely, and/or killed. Assuming she survives the trip back. No doubt the government didn't appreciate her little transmission.
--END OF SPOILERS--
The last 30-40 minutes were rather bad. Overall though I'd give Cargo 6.5/10. There are some enjoyable parts and I might give this another viewing.
The plot is essentially this: In the distant future, the Earth has become uninhabitable and people live on space stations until they can afford to go to a Utopian planet named Rhea. Cargo centers around a spaceship ferrying building materials from Earth's orbit to a distant space station (designated "42") which is supposed to be a waypoint-in-progress, although things don't quite go as planned.
--MINOR SPOILERS--
Unfortunately, many important points are never actually explained: how the Earth's ecosystem was destroyed, how the space stations were built, how people were moved there from Earth, when Rhea was found, what happened on Rhea, etc. There's a LOT of missing background information and this detracts from the film.
The CPR scene is just embarrassingly bad. The ladder scene not long after is unnecessarily dramatized. The crew members of the ship don't seem to remember that the cargo moves (supposedly to avoid freezing?) and that it could be dangerous to investigate the cargo bay. So there's plot hole number one.
Aside from these two bits, and the emerging this-doesn't-make-sense love story between Laura/Decker, the movie continues to do well. Then some bigger problems begin to arise.
--MAJOR SPOILERS--
When the stowaway is discovered and dies, Laura decides to not wonder who shot him. Instead she finds pictures and video of Decker and the stowaway, who somehow inexplicably have built a farm on Earth. It's never explained how they travel between Earth and the space stations, or how Decker got his position and ended up on the ship.
The colonization of Rhea turned out to be a failure and a space station was built orbiting it. As people arrive at the planet, they're hooked up to a simulator on the space station instead of being brought out of cryo-sleep and sent to the planet surface (as they would have expected). This process is flawless enough that no one notices.
The first problem here is that this isn't made too clear. The other problems are HOW and WHY? Nobody seems to operate the station (which we assume is the aforementioned 42, but there's no way to tell for sure)... so is the process automated? The unloading of cargo from the ships appears to be automatic, but someone or something would have to open the containers and hook people up to the simulator. We never see how this done and it's difficult to imagine that everything would be automated. Leaving all those people and all that technology alone without people to even perform maintenance or anything? The people in the simulation seem to be decomposing so there definitely isn't much - if any - upkeep. Shipping more people to this space station seems like a gargantuan mistake.
As for the "why," this is important. Since it's never explained how the colonization of Rhea failed, it must have been pretty catastrophic in order to justify building a space station to house everyone. But why stay near Rhea? It takes YEARS to travel from Earth to Rhea, which is a massive consumption of time and resources. What's the point of keeping 42 so far away from Earth? It would have been much cheaper to build it in Earth's solar system. The government could control space travel to the point where no one would find out what was going on.
So we don't know what happened on Rhea or why people were put in a simulator, why 42 is so far away from Earth, among other things. But wait, it gets worse.
The plan to blow up the antennae after entering the simulation is a bit silly. First Laura has an issue with her thrusters, but she's conveniently found and saved by Decker. When she's exiting the simulation he gives her his fuel and tells her to go on without him, because the ship could leave at any moment. Laura had a problem with her navigation/thrusters, though, not fuel. There's no guarantee that she can make her way to the ship, and probably never will if there's actually a problem with her suit. Why is the ship leaving so soon, anyway? Is it programmed to drop off the cargo and leave? That seems stupid in case something goes wrong.
Decker says "I love you" even though there isn't any reason for it and his bond to Laura is tenuous at best, then he spins off into the planet and obviously dies. When Laura enters the ship, she's attacked by the current captain, the last remaining crew member, who amazingly finds an axe out of nowhere and swings it around with no regard for... well, any part of her environment. Because the film is being run into the ground with horrible writing, she dies. Laura is the only person left now, along with the little girl who never has a single line of dialogue and trusts strangers way too easily. Who's flying the ship now? The computer? How? What's going to happen to Laura when she gets back to Earth's space stations? Thrown in jail, most likely, and/or killed. Assuming she survives the trip back. No doubt the government didn't appreciate her little transmission.
--END OF SPOILERS--
The last 30-40 minutes were rather bad. Overall though I'd give Cargo 6.5/10. There are some enjoyable parts and I might give this another viewing.