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The Astronaut's Wife

The Astronaut's Wife

List Price: $9.97
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Performs well until its rediculous conclusion
Review: When The Astronaut's Wife landed in theaters, it didn't take off. In fact, it appeared to fall off the distributor's launch pad. I can see why. It has a fatal flaw which denyed its having much commercial or critical success, but I feel that what's good about it is that it tries very hard to overcome this problem.

Juliann and Spencer Armacut [Charleze Theron and Johnny Depp] are a married couple who are still madly in love. He's an astronaut, and she's a grammar school teacher. Except for his exotic profession, they could be a typical couple. Naturally, she worries about him, and her worst fears almost come true when there is an accident aboard a space shuttle. Spencer and a fellow astronaut are outside the craft repairing something when they are suddenly cut loose. For two agonizing minutes, they float helplessly in space. The rest of the crew manages to rescue them. Back on Earth, both men are hospitalized for a short while. It doesn't take very long for the two men's wives to figure out that their husbands are somehow different. Very different, as it turns out. These changes are not for the better.

The movie is beautifully photographed. One scene in particular is brilliant. After the accident, the wives are rushed to NASA headquarters. There, Juliann stands in front of a huge television. A camera in the nose of the shuttle shows its approach for landing. It is as though Juliann were landing with the craft. The set designs are also good. In the beginning, all the sets are cozy and warm. When the couple moves to New York afterwards the incident, the sets are vast and cool and elegant. And somehow as empty as space itself.

I have long felt that Johnny Depp is the best physical actor on the screen today. He has an otherworldly quality about him to begin with, and so he does not do as well as some other performers in the emotional sense. He builds his characters by body language. Charleze Theron is one of the most promising, as well as beautiful, young actresses around. She does her best work through her emotions. I think that, as a screen couple, they are an interesting pairing.

Naturally, I won't reveal the ending, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't say that it is the fatal flaw. It makes The Astronaut's Wife end up like an elaborate joke with a bad punch line. I think the problem a lot of people have had with it is that everything else is crafted so well. This prevents it from being in the category they call Bad Movies We All Love. It is a shame that no one was able to bring the cast and crew back to shoot a different ending. Doing so is not all that uncommon. Many movies have been salvaged this way over the years. One famous example is Sunset Boulevard. The original opening had the unintended effect of causing the preview audiences to roll in the aisles with laughter. A new opening was filmed, and the movie became a hit, not to mention a classic.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Acting, Good Suspense
Review: Two astronauts lose contact with NASA for two full minutes during a routine repair operation on a satellite. What happened during those two minutes becomes the center focus of this movie. Spencer (played by Depp) and his partner return to Earth, but the partner dies and Spencer isn't quite the same. That isn't apparent at first until a former NASA employee tries to contact Jillian (played by Theron). Then the movie takes a sinister turn. Is Jillian crazy, or is she pregnant with alien twins?

I enjoyed the performance of Depp and Theron. They have a chemistry that I haven't seen between two actors in a long time. The special effects were good, but I had to turn up the volume to hear the actors' voices over the sound. I give this movie four stars because of the climax. Rather than give it away, I'll say that it didn't fit with the natural laws of science. Otherwise, I enjoyed the movie. It has a cliffhanger, which suggests a sequel.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An flawed but at times Strong Sci-Fi Thriller.
Review: Two American Astronauts (Johnny Deep & Nick Cassavetes) are in a Space Mission and they crossed a Near Fatal Death. When they come back to Earth. One of the Astronauts wife (Charlize Theron) is Pregnant with Twins but she becomes Paranoia, Since she thinks is not her husband (Deep) and she think that a alien lifeform using her husband body and her unborn childern are aliens.

Directed by Rand Ravich brings a Stylish Thriller but this lacks Geniune Suspense. Deep and Theron gives Strong Performances. This one is slow-moving but Well Made. DVD`s has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (1.82:1) transfer and an strong Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. This film plays like the Sci-Fi version of Rosemary`s Baby and Actress:Theron almost replays her role from the Devil`s Advocate but still it`s a watchable film. Grade:B.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Rosemary's Baby in Space...
Review: This science-fiction thriller has some good scenes, but overall, it really is only a not quite successful attempt to make a science-fiction rip-off of Rosemary's Baby. Charlize Theron even has a haircut that resembles that of Mia Farrow in the second half of that movie. But here's very little of the suspense and tension that movie had, and in some scenes the stupidity of the characters - at least Jillian, the Charlize Theron character - gets annoying. Johnny Depp and Clea DuVall (as Jillian's sister) are good, and the other actors are average.

I don't recommend you to buy this movie. Rent it or watch it on TV if you're curious and want to see it. If I could, I would give it two and a half stars.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Touching Ice
Review: The haircut gave it away. Charlize Theron is Roseary a la "Rosemary's Baby" but instead of the Devil up to his shenanigans, it's an alien who gets her pregnant by travelling across space as a radio transmission and occupying her husband.

Johnny Depp is suitably vacant as the possessed spaceman. The movie riffs a little on female insecurities about pregnancy and the impossibility of men and women really understanding each other. It's a case of men being from Mars, etc.

There's little to connect to emotionally in the movie and this is not helped by the director's cold minimalist aesthetic. This movie is as frigid as the regions of Nova Zembla, but now and then you feel a little heat like what is produced by touching ice.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Darkly Provocative
Review: I really like this film. This film is slow and deliberate. Johnny Depp is such an interesting actor you become immersed in the film just on the performance of his character. This is really modern filmmaking based on old-fashioned story telling. It is very intriguing and has been unjustly underrated.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Champion of Mediocrity
Review: This movie is a story about human impregnation by aliens. As other reviewers have pointed out, the subject has been covered in one form or another elsewhere. Though I've seen most of those movies, I was interested in the supernatrual aspects of the subject which weren't always examined in the other movies of this type.
And I was disappointed. The movie has interesting plot twists, but they're not developed. They all constribute to a stressful but uncertain dramatic irony. The viewer is compelled to make guesses about who really knows what, and can't make a good conclusion about what any of the shallowly-played characters really understands. Or wants.
I found the editing distracting; scenes in the middle of the night would end without climax at an edit finding both characters suddenly thrust into daylight.
The Astronaut's Wife is a great story, but I found the execution lacking. If the story resolved more edits, and paid more attention to the interaction between the characters to help build more certainty into the viewer's sense of the characters' awareness, I would have been happier.
The video quality and sound quality are both enjoyable, though not too outstanding. The darker video content really fits the subject, and helps draw the viewer into the movie--which is a huge asset, since the marginal acting by both Depp and Theron won't. The sound had great presence, but I didn't find the movie an auditory feast.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Astronaut's Wife
Review: Despite all of the bad reviews this movie has seen, it IS an excellent film. The acting is very well-done (by ALL cast members). Every actor took on the role in their own realistic way. This movie is far from perfect, but the only real downside is that it's a relatively slow-moving film. However, it's very realistic non-the-less.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The Vastness of Space Can't Hold the Awfulness of this Film
Review: This is, without a doubt, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I saw it for FREE on cable this weekend ...I'm only writing this review as a public service.

Having your mind wiped out and replaced by that of an alien life form that travels through space via radio waves (I'm going to give away as much of the "plot" here as possible, people. If I can convince just one person from watching this movie, I will consider myself a better person)is a preferable fate to watching this movie, for if your mind were wiped clean, you wouldn't remember the horror of having to watch this film...

It's TERRIBLE. It's AWFUL. It's poorly written, horrendously paced, characters act and react with absolutely no logic, and, worst of all, it's not the least bit scary.

And this is DEFINITELY not one of those "so bad it's good" movies. It's just BAD,period.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Good Plot Idea That Leaves You Hanging In Space
Review: I think this story was interesting, new and keeps the viewer glued to the movie. Unfortunately the viewer's not stop attention was caused by confusion and a constant search for answers that are never totally revealed. The screenplay needs more development and editing. As a avid sci-fi fan, I was very disappointed with what could have been a great movie with newness in plot and very good actors.

The blame should be placed with the screen play writer who failed miserably in plot development, the editing, and the audio engineer.

The plot development could have been much enhanced with more information surrounding the character Sherman Reese. Why was he fired? What did he know? How deep was the NASA coverup and why?The briefcase contents could have been much more effective with more revelation of the contents than only the VHS tape. Mr.Reese obviously made the tape in case of his death, so why did he want to share the contents with Jillian prior to his meeting Spenser at the subway exit? The dream sequences could also have been better developed to aid plot cohesion. While riding in the taxi, what did Jillian see coming down a building's stairs? Even viewing in frame by frame mode, it was unclear to me. These are just some examples of poor congruency and unclear development. The ending left the viewer empty and unfullfilled in their quest for answers and with a feeling of being setup for a sequal.

Technically, especially with 5.1 surround systems, the sound levels were from extreme soft to very loud. This viewer got so tired of adjusting the volume level, he finally set volume control level much lower than usual and used closed captioning to aid comprehension of the soft conversations.

In conclusion, this sci-fi maven was very disappointed because TAW was fresh, full of possibilities, and could have been just plain excellent. But after watching the film twice, this viewer felt cheated.


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