Europa Report (2013)

Europa Report is thematically similar to Apollo 18, in that it is about a manned space mission that discovers signs of extraterrestrial life. It is even, technically, a found footage film, although it doesn't really feel like one. It has more of a documentarian spin, with more mounted cameras than handheld ones. As such, it feels more polished, and I think that even those who don't like found footage films should be able to appreciate it. It's really more of a traditional sci-fi space voyage film, and it's a pretty good one - considerably better, I think, than Apollo 18.

In this movie, a six-man crew is en route to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, in the hope of finding signs of life in the subterranean oceans under thick surface layers of ice. But, as typical in films like these, some things go wrong during the voyage, lives are lost, and what the crew finds on Europa ultimately exceeds all expectations. For better and worse. The revelation of those findings are even less prominent than they were in Apollo 18, but on the other hand, I found them to be more satisfying in this movie. The drama, as well, was much more effective. Europa Report doesn't have the sheer titan force of a movie like the recent Interstellar, but I'd say it's a pretty good example of its genre.