Comment:
I thought that Gattaca was a sort of low-budget science fiction movie with a strong background in detective and police stories, featuring an extreme emphasis on moral teaches. Instead, I was very pleased to find a movie that narrates a possibly 'difficult' story in a very stylish and neat way.

Basically, the plot is a detective story where a man responsible of a space mission has been killed and the police is searching for the murderer. However, the story is set in an hypothetical future where DNA analysis is common practice and people are judged more on the basis of this analysis than on their actual abilities. The main character, due to potential deficiencies of his heart, is ruled out from most jobs, including working in space agencies as he always dreamt to do. So, in order to be accepted by the society he uses the 'perfect' DNA of an athlete paralysed due to an accident but now the police investigation may disclose his fraud...

The reason why I was expecting a strong moral mark is obvious, the plot seemed just an excuse to describe a possible future society where genetic engineering is widely used and misused. The society is indeed described in a quite detailed way but this seemed to be diluted through all the movie run time hence making it less intrusive and there were almost no boring or pretentious speeches on this subject. Incidentally, this doesn't weaken the message in any way but actually makes it more intense by letting it appear in every aspect of the movie and not concentrated in peculiar points.

One thing that I haven't been able to appreciate is the performance of the actors, especially Uma Thurman, who seemed to offer a standard performance, nothing more. One notable exception to this criticism is Jude Law who gives a very good characterization to the paralysed athlete. The secondary characters aren't worth noting, their role is not completely unimportant to the story but their personality is not developed enough.

What impressed me of this movie is the way it is filmed and visually designed, something that is often overlooked in mainstream movies. In fact, a lot of attention has been put in the photography and in the balance of the colours; in every scene the dominant colours are yellow, green and eventually blue, but there almost no red. This gives an incredibly good result by making everything appear cold and also increases the importance of blood in the story.

So, while the movie itself may seem slow, weak and sometimes tiresome, it is incredibly well thought and some of its flaws may actually be revaluated considering the meaning and the style of the movie as a whole. A final minor detail worth noting is the fact that during the opening credits the letters A, C, G and T are emphasized; these letters represents the four components of the DNA and even the name "Gattaca" is made entirely with these letters!