Teleios

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USA • 2017 • 89m •

• Directed by: Ian Truitner. • Starring: Sunny Mabrey, Lance Broadway, T.J. Hoban, Christian Pitre, Mykel Shannon Jenkins, Ursula Mills, Weetus Cren, Michael Nouri, Leila Birch, Brett Robert Culbert, Armando DuBon Jr., Seth Duhame, Andreas Lyon. • Music by: Roman Kovalik.

The crew of the ship Teleios, comprised of genetically modified humans, is sent to retrieve the cargo from a mining ship adrift in deep space. It is suspected the crew brutally killed each other, but the reasons unknown. However, when they investigate the crew of Teleios find there are two survivors, one member of the crew and an artificial life form unit. The memory of the AI unit appears to have been erased and Travis O'Neill refuses to talk. The genetically modified humans are breaking down and learn that the only way to reduce the symptoms is to drink the blood of an unmodified human. The crew discuss the possibility of drinking the blood of the man they believe maybe a serial killer, or may be completely innocent.

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Review:

Mild Spoilers, nothing that will ruin the movie. This movie is re-named, just as several others that I've come across on Amazon Prime (search by director or actor name, then match the artwork, if you run into this). I am assuming this is to make some kind of connection to Star Trek (there is none, and despite numerous quotes, I didn't hear a single reference to anything about a trek, in the movie). The writer was going for a more thought provoking resolution, so I could see a comparison to Star Trek: The Original Series. I can forgive a lot, in terms of special effects (which were actually pretty good, for the most part) and acting (which was definitely less consistent, but I thought it was a reasonable effort to portray characters who aren't regular humans). My biggest issues were significant problems with the story that distracted from the big and interesting questions that it asked.

Unfortunately, the story broke down in several places. If you listen carefully to the time frame for Teleios' rescue mission, transit time is quite long, requiring some sort of stasis pods. But, if you follow the timeline for the problems on the Atromitos and the return time given toward the end of the movie, the Teleios would have to have left almost a year before the Atromitos started harvesting its cargo, and more than two years before all hands were presumed dead. In addition, the issue that crops up for all of the Teleios crew members seems to have just become a problem on Earth, but the crew has been in stasis for three years (so either they have an additional three years before it should be an issue for them, or they shouldn't have a problem, since they had been in transit while the problem developed on Earth). There are odd things that happen with the artificial human, but not enough clues are given early in the story, so the additional information we get later just feels tacked on. Finally, the underlying reasons for the final 'choice' and resolution are not foreshadowed well and not explained at all, until after the fact. Also, one has to question how the person affected could become a member of a spaceship crew.

There are also some serious technical errors, particularly at the beginning. The CGI suggests that the asteroid belt is made up of large, closely spaced rocks. In fact, planetary rings are made of many small particles that are far apart. Also, the Teleios' speed is given as 485 km per hour. This is far too slow for planetary orbit, and it's far too fast to be the speed relative to Atromitos. Later, the formulas given are very simple chemical compounds, which couldn't possibly represent the complex compounds that one would find in Titan's atmosphere and certainly not something that couldn't be easily synthesized on Earth (so why send an expedition and spend two years collecting it). These details can be easily verified, so this is just lazy writing.

The story makes use of numerous quotes. If the crew can translate them, there's no reason they couldn't figure out that they are rather famous quotes. I recognized several, as soon as I heard the translation. There's no reason the crew shouldn't recognize them, if they are as intelligent as is suggested. Furthermore, the quotes just don't make that much sense. Why are they in the original languages? The character who speaks them is described as having little education or intelligence, and we never get a reasonable explanation for this. As a group, the quotes make much more sense in reference to the themes in the story, but not as part of the main action.

I think the story would have benefited significantly from more editing and revision in the writing stage and the help of a technical expert or two.

Review by vpitman1 from the Internet Movie Database.