The first impression when watching Dark Matter is that it is the umpteenth audiovisual production about the multiverse. Furthermore, it cannot be said that the predecessors were precisely projects that went unnoticed. In this subgenre are the latest Marvel and DC Comics adventures in cinemas and television, that Everything at once everywhere that swept the Oscars or the Spider-man animated films that are extraordinary. He even delved into this narrative resource Constellation, the science fiction series with Noomi Rapace that Apple TV, the same platform, premiered in February.
With this introductory paragraph I do not intend to say (or I do) that the multiverse cannot be touched in the audiovisual but perhaps it would be convenient to let the ground air out a little, to oxygenate it, or to find a way to approach it from an original or novel perspective. , as they have achieved some of the titles mentioned. And this Dark Materials, where the writer Blake Crouch adapts his own novel, is an inert, trite work, with nothing to contribute and, worst of all, with a seriousness that tries to hide his lack of ideas.
It begins with Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), who has a quiet life as a physicist, university professor and family man. One night, when he returns home, he is assaulted by a masked man who drugs him and puts him in a cubicle. When he regains consciousness, he finds himself in a life that is not his own. Instead of having Jennifer Connelly as his wife, he has Alice Braga. His son does not exist. He is a millionaire instead of a teacher with a mediocre salary (but with good housing).
The trailer even lays out the premise beyond the pilot episode. The Jason Dessen of an alternate reality has usurped his identity because he has what he envies: a life together with Jennifer Connelly (as I imagine any sane person thinks of her). But returning to his reality won’t be easy when no one believes him and no one (except for his doppelganger) understands how to navigate between parallel realities. How can he return to his family? And what is the other Jason doing with his wife in the reality that belongs to him?
The photography by John Lindley and Jeffrey Greeley is gray. The plot has problems starting without the characters serving as an excuse, since they move through common places and in the first four episodes no one takes a single interesting idea, nor does it have a dialogue that allows us to delve deeper into them. Jason Hill’s music, in its attempt to convey the unease of the main conflict, creates a monotonous and downright unpleasant atmosphere to listen to. It’s as if, faced with the protagonist’s existential crisis, the entire team of Blake Crouch and director Jakob Verbruggen are pulling in one direction: that Dark Matter is a brick.
And, in the midst of all this chaos, Jennifer Connelly walks with that presence that is so characteristic of her, as if she were floating and was a kind of evolution of the human being. I wish it were enough to save this misadventure through the multiverse.
