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The Titan

SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT

First, let me inform you that I am a rather large fan of the sci-fi genre. I will give a good monster movie 5/5 just for having giant monsters in it fighting each other. I’m already looking forward to giving “Rampage” a perfect score. Giant Monsters? Check. The Rock? Check. Although he could fit into the Giant Monsters category. Performances be damned, I am not looking for an Oscar worthy film, as long as it is entertaining. The Titan, unfortunately, was not. 

Set in the near future in a world where the Earth is on the brink of utter destruction, a handful of soldiers are personally selected by Prof. Martin Collingwood (Tom Wilkinson) to participate in an experiment sanctioned by the UN at a remote military instillation. The goal of the experiment is to alter the test subjects DNA so much that they will be able to survive on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Rather than trying to terraform the moon, the program intends to transform the species itself, eventually resulting in what they term “Homo-Titanius”. This film absolutely had potential to be an excellent sci-fi thriller, but missed the mark by a titan sized moon. The film starts out introducing us to Lt. Rick Janssen (Sam Worthington), his wife Dr. Abi Janssen (Taylor Schilling), and their son Lucas (Noah Jupe) as they are being resettled in their temporary home, which is extremely nice for military housing. I thought by the pace at the start that the film might be on track to dive right in and set up some seriously intense moments. I was mistaken.

Shortly after we see the recruits “training” begin. This part of the film drags on showing the recruits getting shots, sitting under water for obscene amounts of time, and basically becoming Michael Phelps. Rick will spend a large portion of the film submerged underwater, just sitting there. To be fair, the changes are pretty interesting, but the film missed a huge opportunity in Cpl. Zane Gorski (Aaron Heffernan). This Marine Corps. Corporal already suffers from PTSD and the experiments are having a clearly negative effect on his psyche. The Titan dedicates about a total of 5-10 minutes to his story, with some minor dialogue from his wife. A movie about his struggle would have been a far more intense, and all around more frightening feature than the entirety of The Titan. In fact, one of he only times I was genuinely involved in the film was when Abi Janssen saw flashing yellow lights and went outside to see what was going on. The military had swarmed around Lt. Gorski’s home, and as the Dr. was trying to make her way to the house, Mrs. Gorski was sent crashing through a window. We then saw her lifeless body lying on the ground, beaten and bloody. Dr. Janssen stood their in shock as the film showed Cpl. Gorski, who had clearly developed physical changes, posture menacingly at some military members before being shot dead. I bet the inside of that home was far scarier than anything offered in The Titan.

The film continues to track the changes of Lt. Janssen and his co-subjects through various tests with subjects dropping left and right. The changes begin to become more and more pronounced, from drastic changes in body temperature to losing their hair and shedding their skin. Taylor Schilling’s character is clearly experiencing some serious concern about the effects the experiments are having on her husband, as their relationship goes from playfully teasing each other in the beginning of the film to depressing distance throughout. Rick is aware that he is changing, but he decides to push on in order to save humanity from itself. However, the audience does not feel involved at all. The threat doesn’t feel real or present. 

After a while the rest of the test subjects have all failed out or died. None of them seem worth mentioning except for one, Warrant Officer Tally Rutherford (Nathalie Emmanuel). Rutherford is the only other subject to make it through all of the experiments with Janssen. At this point we see the final product of the experiments, which turns out to be emotionless fish people that can no longer speak and communicate by touch for some reason. Dr. Janssen is as speechless as a fish person when she sees her husbands transformation, with Dr. Collingwood trying to convince her that it’s still Rick. This is where the worst plot mishap occurs. Dr. Collingwood decides to let the creepy fish people that don’t speak and cost millions of dollars, spend the night away from the base and at home before they begin their voyage to Titan. Now, Collingwood repeatedly mentions how much the experiments cost, and that the subjects are expensive, but here, before they send the last two subjects into space, he lets them go home. Sure. 

Fish Rick goes home and is silent, in nothing but his blue skin tight onesie. He tries to put on a jacket but he has changed so much that it doesn’t fit. Abi sees him struggling and tries to help him, but Fish Rick ends up hitting her on accident. He doesn’t seem too broken up about it, but she is clearly afraid and distraught about everything that has happened. Dr. Collingwood promised the subjects that they would, “..still be you, but a better you.”. It becomes clear that no one was expecting this. Fish Rick goes to the pool, of course, and out of nowhere Fish Tally shows up. Fish Rick leaps out of the pool, and communicates with Fish Tally by holding hands. We find out that she has killed her husband for some unexplained reason. Abi sees them communicating and in a panic, runs upstairs to find Lucas. We see military folks swarming the house to find the Fish folk, and encounter them at the pool. They shoot Fish Tally with tranquilizers, but she fakes being unconscious and kills one of the soldiers with a weird bone spike thing that the fish folk have developed at some point. It’s kind of like a built in Assassins Creed wrist blade, just blue and part of them. She is then shot dead by the surrounding soldiers. Fish Rick doesn’t like that and attacks, killing all of them before Abi runs out and begs him to stop. He then runs away. Abi finds him in the woods, at a location he showed her before he became a fish man. In a dramatic moment, Abi walks up to him and holds his hand, and then kisses him as military vehicles close in. 

The end of the film picks up quite a bit, but it is too little, too late. Back in the facility, Dr. Collingwood requests that Abi give Fish Rick a shot that will make him forget everything, who he is, who she is, who their son is, etc. She does not do it, instead giving Fish Rick a different shot. When the obnoxious second in command walks into Fish Rick’s cage, he is promptly murdered by the bone spike, and Rick runs away again killing more soldiers. He is wounded though, and winds up cornered in a room with Abi and Lucas, and another Dr. who was given zero character development and isn’t really worth mentioning except for the fact that now she wanted to help. Maybe. Dr. Collingwood enters and tells Abi to give up Fish Rick, he was expensive, etc. and she delivers the most memorable line of the entire film, “Go fuck yourself.” Grade A dialogue. Dr. Collingwood then instructs the base commander to fire on the Fishtastic Four, but the commander refuses to kill two innocent women and a child. Instead, he pulls his pistol and trains it on Dr. Collingwood, prompting his soldiers to do the same. 

The last scene shows Abi in a NASA facility, where she goes outside to stare into space as Lucas plays with a paper airplane. We then see Fish Rick apparently quite happy, and quite in space. He is naked for no apparent reason, and standing on Titan. 

This film had so much potential. The documenting of the changes was an excellent opportunity to create a horrifying and intense atmosphere where these highly intelligent, adapted specimens were hunting the other folks, instead we got almost no suspense until the end of the film for about 5 minutes. There was no attachment, it almost didn’t matter if the experiments were successful or not, except for the fact that I came to despise Tom Wilkinson’s character and wanted him to fail more than I wanted Fish Rick and Abi to succeed. After all, it’s quite difficult for even the staunchest sci-fi fans to cheer for an emotionless fish man. 

I give this film 2 out of 5 buckets of popcorn.