Captain Nova

This Dutch language (but well-dubbed into English) sci-fi movie concerns a female pilot who is chosen to go back in time from the Earth of 2050, which is suffering the consequences of a man-made environmental disaster, to 2025, in order to prevent the disaster from taking place.

As with most time travel movies, it has the problem of logical twists; one of these is that the woman loses 25 years in age and becomes the teenage girl that she was in 2025, although the dilemma of meeting her actual self never happens. She then has the challenge of persuading the man who caused the disaster to stop what he was intending to do and thus change the future of the planet. Quite why the pilot did not take a letter from the 2050 man to his 2025 self, or why she did not go back to, say, 2024, which would allow her plenty of time to prevent the 2025 disaster, are never made clear, but the 'last minute' nature of her mission does add to the dramatic tension.

There are some amusing aspects to the story, including a mechanical drone that accompanies her (and which is both seemingly purposeless and never seems to run out of energy) and guns that 'freeze' (put into 'pause mode'), rather than kill, their intended targets.

The film is quite dark and sombre, both in terms of lighting and moods, and the characters seem to be very serious all of the time. The authorities/army of 2025 seem particularly ineffective, with the teenage girl and a boy who helps her continuously running rings around and escaping from them.

The film is well-made, if not spellbinding, with good special effects and credible characters that you want to succeed. Although the target audience is clearly teenagers, the filmmakers do not treat the viewers like idiots, which makes it an interesting and pleasant film for adults, too.