THE TITAN. Not entirely successful science fiction mash-up

Before you proceed, I must warn you – although I won’t go beyond what you can deduce from the trailer, plot description, or even the poster, the rest of the review reveals minor or major plot details. I tried my best to avoid it, but… well, it’s impossible. The Titan relies on so many worn-out motifs and ubiquitous tropes that the creators didn’t even bother to properly blend these borrowed elements. The result is that essentially just watching the trailer is enough to list point by point the events that will happen during the slightly over an hour and a half runtime of the film and conclude that it’s not worth wasting your time.

We’re in the year 2048. Earth is overpopulated, natural resources are depleting, and people are fighting each other because a global crisis is the perfect time to start a war, right? Los Angeles is uninhabitable, as is an increasing part of our planet. So, what should we do? Of course, start working on the Titan project, aimed at accelerating evolution and creating a new humanoid species – Homo Titanis. Never mind that according to NASA‘s real plans, Mars colonization is supposed to begin within the next fifteen years – it’s better to wait another fifteen, after which a group of distinguished military personnel and scientists will be rapidly mutated, and then sent to Titan – Saturn’s largest moon, which has an atmosphere (unsuitable for life) and lakes (filled with methane instead of water).

Such absurdities abound in The Titan. It’s only comforting that in the face of crisis, international organizations not only stopped wasting public money but also persuaded Land Rover to abandon their rather flashy design present in their latest models, opting instead for the deserved (and not produced since last year) Land Rover Discovery IV generation and the indispensable element of the US army from the 20th to the 23rd century – Hummers (production ceased in 2010). Oh, I almost forgot – the action of the film The Titan takes place somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, on a paradise island serving as a secret NATO research unit. Luckily, Rick Janssen’s (Sam Worthington) wife, played by Taylor Schilling (Piper Chapman, Orange is the New Black), is a prominent pediatrician (a doctor specializing in pediatric diseases, in case you were wondering), thanks to which she quickly deciphered the plan of the mad genius and genetics expert – Professor Martin Collingwood (Tom Wilkinson).

I’m joking a bit, but Abigail Janssen, played by Taylor Schilling, is the only character in The Titan that the creators managed to portray multidimensionally. The rest – although they don’t act badly – are written in such a way that the script of this film could easily be written by elementary school students (both in terms of acting and in the form of puppet theater).

If I were to rate The Titan based on the number of “Huh?” exclaimed by me in moments of greatest embarrassment, I would run out of a ten-point scale. However, if I were to assess this film seriously, I think the greatest recognition goes to the fact that the writer Arash Amel and the screenwriter Max Hurwitz (what a decline after the successful Manhunt: Unabomber) had the guts to shamelessly rip off ideas from at least a few (if not a dozen) not-so-niche titles. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if they took H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, shaped the plot development like David Cronenberg’s The Fly, then added something contemporary like the amphibian man from The Shape of Water, and ultimately presented it almost as a prequel to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which – unless equipped with a potion allowing it to “melt” and give birth to life on a new planet – is sent into space for a one-way trip, well, The Titan presents just that. The story depicted in The Titan is simply a brilliant last-ditch plan, the absurdity of which surpasses that of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and the chances of salvation for the dying humanity stemming from it would surely evoke a similar grimace of a smile on Arthur Schopenhauer’s face.

I haven’t seen anything that disdainfully disregards the viewer’s intelligence in a long time.

Oh, one more thing – on Netflix, “The Titan” is categorized as “Intellectual.” The joke was completed, the curtain fell, the audience has no idea what actually happened before their eyes.

Words by Damian Halik