The director Rudolph Herzog, with his father, Werner Herzog, narrating, explores the feasibility of off-world colonization.
In the documentary “Last Exit: Space,” the director Rudolph Herzog grabs a baton from his father, Werner Herzog, and continues his dad’s explorations of oddball aspiring visionaries. The topic is space colonization: who might do it and how, and, ultimately, what reaching for the stars says about living on Earth.
The initial interviewees, including a father and daughter preparing for D.I.Y. spaceflight in Denmark and a scientist using the Ramon Crater in Israel to mimic the surface of Mars, offer pitches that are a bit utilitarian for the Herzog house style. The movie grows weirder when it looks further out, to the possibility of space travel across 5,000 years. A “leading space sexologist” considers the problem of cross-generational inbreeding. A geneticist describes his lab’s 500-year plan to build humans more physically resistant to the ravages of space.
It’s not all wonderment. Werner, who delivers his peerless voice-over, explains that life on Mars might be less exciting than it sounds: “A crew of hardy astronauts would hunker down in radiation-proof bunkers enjoying drinks of recycled urine.” The anthropologist Taylor Genovese warns that corporate colonies on Mars would be a means of creating a feudal system, with a work force trapped on another planet.
“Last Exit: Space” is variably engaging depending on who’s talking, and a late but typical shift toward mysticism (a group in Brazil believes it was descended from aliens) is a letdown from what came before. The movie gives a stimulating but standard-by-Herzog-standards treatment to a stellar subject.
Last Exit: Space
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Watch on Discovery+.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
