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| Gattaca | 
| Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  358 reviews
Sales Rank: 2281
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Video Download
Running Time: 107 minutes
ASIN: B000T45C32
Theatrical Release Date: October 23, 1997
Release Date: July 1, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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| Customer Reviews:
 Science fiction at its best, a modern version of Huxley's "Brave New World" July 12, 2008
Gattaca really makes you wonder about the moral and ethical consequences of genetic engineering, and the risks of mankind playing God. This is science fiction at its best. In a nutshell, Gattaca is the modern version of Aldous Huxley's science fiction classic novel Brave New World (1932).
As usual, not every great movie is a box office hit, and Gattaca actually went unnoticed for many sci-fi fans. Why? The film's atmosphere is that of a slow pace dystopia, quite similar to the classic novel Fahrenheit 451. Therefore, the movie lacks many of the sophisticated modern special effects we are used to, up to the extreme of astronauts traveling to outer space in full business suits. Also, worth noticing is the great performance by the leading and renowned actors Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law. Deliberately the movie does not have any flamboyant SFX because its simplicity is part of the attractive. It is high tech against the human spirit!
I do highly recommend this movie, whether or not you are a science fiction fan. For those interested in exploring similar philosophic and ethical questions regarding genetic engineering and cloning, I also recommend watching the 1980 or 1998 TV versions of "Brave New World" (not available on DVD), The Island (based on Huxley's novel Island (Perennial Classics)), Blade Runner - The Final Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition), the action hero movie The 6th Day and Jurassic Park (Widescreen Collector's Edition), though the original Jurassic Park novel's storyline is much better than the movie. Also Michael Crichton's novel Next raises similar interesting and deeper ethical issues regarding genetic engineering, a more comprehensive exploration of the issues than Gattaca, but be aware that "NEXT" has a really lousy childish plot, not Crichton's at his best.
And by the way, I was curious about what Gattaca meant, if anything. According to Wikipedia, "the title is based on EcoRI, a restriction enzyme that cuts the sequence GAATTC, that composed of the initial letters of the four DNA nucleotides (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine)."
PS: There is a VHS version of Brave New World (1998) available, though it is hard to find (see details at the Amazon UK store). The 1980 BNW version is available at Google Video, with low quality.
 The future of the film is now here. June 22, 2008
I think that this is a very profound and entertaining movie. The future is here, from the electric cars to the screening machines. The only part that perplexed me was at the end when our hero and others got on a rocket to outer space dressed as if they were going to a corporate meeting. Has anyone else said anything about this? I can't find a review that does. Am I missing something here? Am I the only person who has seen this movie who thinks that the ending is ridiculous? I really would like for someone to give me their thoughts about this. Other than this, I thought the acting was great and the plot outstanding. Great Movie.
Edge-of-your-seat suspense May 24, 2008
This is a great science-fiction movie with almost no special effects. It's set in a near future with pervasive genetic discrimination, and you feel Vincent's frustration as a "natural" with little hope of achieving his dream of spaceflight. Despite the lack of effects and action sequences that drive a lot of SF movies, Gattaca had me on the edge of my seat!
Triumph of the human spirit May 23, 2008
In some dystopian future, date unspecified, our descendants are on the cusp of a brave new world in which designer babies become the norm. Shortly before this technological achievement our hero comes upon the scene with all of the normal faults and frailties that mortal flesh is usually heir to. Having forked out for the specs necessary to redress the faults in his vision they decide to spend their cash second time around ensuring his brother has no need of such artificial aids. In due course the younger son surpasses his brother in the usual childhood games and is well on the way to fulfilling all of his parents aspirations and repaying their investment when Vincent, the elder and imperfect son, decides that his home life isn't doing his self esteem any favours and leaves to find his imperfect way in the perfect world bequeathed to his favoured sibling. He obtains a job as a cleaner at Gattaca, an institution whose existence depends upon selecting and training only the most ideal human specimens to continue humanity's quest for the stars. Demonstrating that crime is always a corollary of social injustice the movie has Vincent obviously managing to save enough from his cleaner's wage to take advantage of the black market in false identities and we meet Jude Law, the antithesis of Vincent in many ways: the golden boy made bad. They `swap' identities and Vincent becomes the `perfect' Jerome and begins to take pleasure in all the fruits that perfect specimens, or `valids' enjoy as part of their birthright, including those provided by off-screen wife, Uma Thurman in the person of the perfectly lovely Irene. He gets accepted for flight crew training at Gattaca and loses no opportunity to gaze at the stars his soon to be destination if all goes well!
Vincent encounters his brother again, in the form of the senior investigating officer, when a member of Gattaca's senior people gets his perfect cranium clobbered and all of its `employees' become subject to interrogation thereby threatening Vincent's dream.
This is an unusually thoughtful Sci-Fi film which asks all of the usual, who are we, where are we going type questions about human existence and forces an examination of the current preoccupation with genetic engineering, celebrity, `extreme makeover' shows and the type of air-headed celeb mags such as Hello that push the air-brushed perfection to which we are all supposed to aspire. But it's also a masterpiece of film making with superb art direction, the welcome presence of such Hollywood veterans as Alan Arkin and Ernest Borgnine, an intelligent script by director Andrew Niccol and a hauntingly beautiful Michael Nyman score. As such it ranks alongside Blade Runner as a let entry into to the pantheon of true masterworks of Sci-Fi film making.
G-A-T-T-A-C-A May 14, 2008
Superbit=god.
Well not really, but you get my point.
Does anyone else see the correlation between the letters of the title and DNA sequences? A friend pointed this out to me, I hadn't noticed before.
Love, love, LOVE this movie. Probably one of my top three. If you have half a brain, you should probably own it.
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