I’m not a big movie watcher myself, mostly because I am just not good at sitting still and watching something without using my hands for something, anything. Recently I wanted to finish a couple of sowing projects that had been lying around and I had a bit of an audiobook overload so I looked for something simple to watch instead – and I settled on Prospect.

I never heard of it and I am assuming you neither have you, but it featured Pedro Pascal in an astronaut’s helmet on the tile, so I figured ‘why not?’.

I’m going with a three star review, but that is probably on the generous side if we measure Prospect against most of the sci-fi blockbusters rolling out of Hollywood. Prospect is a small budget movie (Wikipedia tells me: USD 4 million), and it shows. It feels fair to take that into account on some level at least.

However, I really like the type of project that flows from the budget limitations.

Prospect is a small-scale movie, with few starring roles, no big CGI set pieces and a relatively simple script. Those are ingredients for an intimate, character-focussed story that punches well above its weight in terms of budget. Question is, does Prospect fulfil that promise?

I think Prospect is at its best when it is at its least ambitious. In fact, I think Prospect may be at its best in its opening shots, with just two characters confined to a used future landing pod preparing to drop to a moon, announcing they’ll catch their ride back to inhabited space on the back end of the gravitational sling. I think these scenes ooze atmosphere and show off the beautifully crafted decor and props very well.

To be honest, I think the movie doesn’t manage to keep up that level of attention to detail. As more characters and settings are introduced, it feels like time and budget ran out to set the scene as lovingly as the introduction does. Towards the end of the runtime, the action scenes are dark and patchy, obscuring many details.

What needs to carry the movie is the interaction between Sophie Thatcher’s Cee and Pedro Pascal’s Ezra. Honestly, Pedro Pascal might be the most recognisable element of the the movie poster, but I don’t think he’ll be the most memorable performance for most viewers; his villain-who-seems-to-read-every-line-from-a-thesaurus is characterful but also just a little predictable. I honestly liked Thatcher’s performance going from doe-eyed to grim-faced better.

Though I think the script sets up their dynamic well, I was a bit let down in the end by how it played out; I can’t give more details without spoilers, but it kept feeling just a little forced. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the movie more if they would not have ended up meeting anyone along their journey, giving them more time for character-to-character moments.

So Prospect is not a perfect movie, but it is at least a decent movie, and a welcome change from the overwhelming style of many sci-fi epics. I loved the props, I thought Thatcher did very well, and I could honestly watch that opening over and over again. If you’re no sure what to watch, you could do a lot worse than putting this on – and if you decide halfway through it might not be for you, don’t worry: you’ve already seen the best bits!