Europa Report is not for everybody, but I found it worthwhile. Its virtues reside in a parsimonious plot, understated action, and a plausible presentation of the experience of near-future space exploration. Its weaknesses lie in its ensemble of rather flat and static characters, and in a few technical faux pas* likely to trouble only space boffins and members of The Planetary Society. However since the movie bids so high in the Technical Realism suit, we do expect it to play that hand.
Also, potentially off-putting for some may be the chronologically-jumbled found-footage style of presentation that obliges the viewer to work a bit harder to make sense of the sequence of events than is warranted by the elementary story line. I mention it as a caveat, but trust me, you've see far worse.
The movie tells the story of a crew dispatched on a commercially-funded space venture to seek life, implied by the presence of water, on a moon of Jupiter. This is a long, tedious, bleak voyage with only the chance of a scientifically-profound payoff. Each member of the crew is committed to the cause in his/her own way, but the cost of the mission's success proves to be very high.
I particularly liked the lean, stoic tone of the narrative. The visuals, including the ship's austere interior, the exterior vistas, and the moonscapes, were well-crafted and convincing. The interface graphics of the crew's technology added subtle notes of credibility.
This movie is about the risks and rewards of exploring other worlds. It suggests, but does not exaggerate, the reasons why humans will choose to take those risks. And it illustrates the inevitable losses those gambles will entail.
I do not recommend Europa Report to you if you're looking for deep plotting, high action, rich fantasy, or space opera. Europa Report has more in common with Moon than with Star Wars. But if you have a taste for Science Fiction with a strong sense of near-future plausibility, I do recommend it to you.
(Spoilers follow)
* For example:
For a damaged communications array, a solar event seems much less plausible than any of a number of other signal-munging accidents.
Did you find yourself periodically wondering "Which of the ship's cameras is taking that shot, 'cause I'm pretty sure there is no reason to for them to have a camera aimed there?"
And since the real Europa's gravity is weaker even than the Moon's, much of the action depicted on the surface of their fictional version of the icy world just does not look right. Indeed, many of the perils facing the crew would not be so perilous but for the Earth-like gravity they mysteriously endure there. The captain's fatal fall is particularly troublesome in that regard
Europa Report