October 24, 1997 | In the brave new world imagined by writer-director Andrew Niccol in Gattaca, a visually arresting but dramatically uninvolving sci-fi trifle, genetically-engineered test-tube babies grow up to become masters of the universe. Children born the old-fashioned way have far less elevated roles to play as adults.
Vincent (Ethan Hawke), the product of a “faith birth,” yearns to navigate spacecraft for the powerful Gattaca Corporation. But because he suffers from near-sightedness and a chronic heart problem, he must settle for being a maintenance worker at Gattaca headquarters. But he doesn’t settle for very long. Desperate to fulfill his impossible dreams, he opts to become a “borrowed ladder” — that is, an imposter who assumes the identity of a genetically perfect individual. Jerome (Jude Law), a cynical ex-Olympian who was crippled after a botched suicide attempt, provides Vincent with blood, urine and gene samples to facilitate the hoax. And, just to be on the safe side, Vincent purchases some contact lenses on his own.
After that, all goes well. For a while, at least.
Niccol makes his filmmaking debut with Gattaca after enjoying a profitable career in England as director of TV commercials. Not surprisingly, considering his background, he is gives Gattaca all the sleekly futuristic production values that a mid-range Hollywood budget can cover. But the plot, involving a murder investigation that may expose Vincent, is thin and haphazardly developed. (By the time the killer is reveled, we’ve long stopped caring.) And while Niccol peppers the movie with some clever details — many characters smoke, indicating that genetically perfect people never have to worry about lung cancer — he blithely ignores some gaping plot holes. Most annoyingly, he never explains why, in a future where so many miracles have been performed in genetic engineering, nothing has been done about spinal-cord injuries such as the one that keeps Jerome wheelchair-bound.
Since Hawke gives such a glum and uninteresting performance, it’s easy for Law to commit petty larceny by stealing every scene in which he appears. Uma Thurman shows up to provide the mandatory romantic interest as a Gattaca employee with her own defects to worry about. She has little to do but look beautiful and, occasionally, express anxiety. She handles both chores with all the rote professionalism of someone picking up an easy paycheck between more demanding projects.
