The Astronaut's Wife

Rating:
Summary: The Astronaut's Trite
Review: How ironic it is, that Theron on the back of the box for this DVD is billed as "Charlize Theron (Devil's Advocate)"; this movie is a pale, inferior carbon copy of that movie (Theron is a middle class woman with a pure heart abandoned by her husband in the rich, but oh-so-cold NY of wealthy socialites), "Rosemary's Baby" (a woman discovers to her horror, that she has been impregnated with the seed of evil and that she can trust noone around her) and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (sinister alien plot to overtake earth by replacing humans with evil, callous copies).

Depp seems to be doing "James Dean playing a glum Elvis", plus you get the feeling that his subtext throughout the entire movie is "This paycheck is gonna make it possible for me to do a few indie-projects that I actually care about". And the beautiful Theron can't quite hide her great talent, but she doesn't have much to work with here: A shallow, unsuspenseful plot with unmemorable dialogue and scenes.

Two stars are for the stylishness of the movie, for Depp and Theron, who really should save their talents for better material than this, and for the technical quality of the disc; the picture is crisp, so is the sound.

Only on a very rainy day is this worth your time and money. I already traded my copy of this DVD.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this movie!
Review: The best part about this movie was that it was suttle and did not require all the blood and guts to be thrilling. I just loved the ending.

Rating:
Summary: The biggest bad guy in this movie is Charlize Theron's hair
Review: The Astronaut's Wife (Rand Ravich, 1999)
availability: still on the new release shelves on video

You know it's a bad rental night when the highest hopes you have for a movie are of something that looked so utterly silly in the previews that you had no desire to see it in the theaters. Unfortunately, I got roped into this... and aside from the, uh, "climax" <snort>, it wasn't really all that bad a movie, aside from Charlize Theron's "as ugly as I wanna be" hairdo.

Johnny Depp and (how far the mighty have fallen!) Nick Cassavettes are two astronauts who go into space to make some minor repairs to a satellite, and are out of contact with Earth for two minutes while they're on the other side of the shuttle. As a premise, this is kind of boring; I didn't realize this wasn't a common occurrence on shuttle missions. But, of course, something nasty happens, and the two come back to earth in comas. Pretty soon Cassavettes and his wife (engagingly played by Donna Murphy), the best of couples, are having marital problems, and Depp and his wife (Theron) are close behind. Feel free to draw all conscusions you need to-- and you're right. I don't need to spoil it, you can do it yourselves well enough, I've no doubt.

The good stuff here, aside from a decent performance by Depp, is in the minor roles. Samatha Eggar pops up as Theron's ob-gyn (and those of you familiar with Eggar's most famous role will know why the irony of this was so delicious), and Clea DuVall, as Theron's wisecracking sister, absolutely saved the first half of this movie (note for Joy Fielding fans: DuVall is listed in the cast of the upcoming See Jane Run).

Unfortunately, these things aren't enough to hold it all together, and as the plot slowly disintegrates (and this is another case of "great premise, bad execution") the whole thing becomes laughable; by the time we get around to seeing the bad guy, we don't care how stupid he is. He

can't be any worse than the situation he's been placed in. * 1/2 solely for Eggar and DuVall.

Rating:
Summary: Quirky, weird, strange but really quite good
Review: Okay, I'm going to upset the apple cart here, I enjoyed this film. Johnny Depp was great as the possessed Astronaut who returns to earth after a space walk goes wrong. Charlize Theron didn't do too badly either as his super-sexy wife who isn't quite sure what is going on other than she is pregnant and there's a chance her children just might not be human. Yes it is slow moving, yes it is an odd film but despite that it works for me. The special effects aren't all that, but this is more of a film for those of a cerebral nature and a lot is left to your own imagination. The film asks the question "what if" aliens didn't haven't to take human form, "what if" they could attune themselves to a certain electrical frequency, and take control of a human mind; after all we are just electrical brain waves, our mind generating minute amounts of electricity, similar to those generated in say a satellite? As Charlize realizes that all is not well with her husband, she struggles to make sense of what is going on. Why did her husband's fellow space walker die so suddenly after returning to earth? And his wife was pregnant when she committed suicide, not only pregnant but pregnant with twins, the same as Charlize. Should she have an abortion or should she continue with her pregnancy? Charlize doesn't know which way to turn. Her instincts are to abort but her desire to be a mother is great. The suspense in the film is well orchestrated with Depp giving a solid performance as the man/alien intent on his offspring being born. He tells his wife whilst pointing at her pregnant belly "I live in there" so that she knows he is aware of everything she thinks and does. This is a creepy film with an equally creepy ending that is both intelligent and thought provoking. However I will concede it is not everyone's cup of tea but all the same it really is quite a good little film despite the heavy panning it got from critics and viewers.

Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: I was expecting a lot from this movie - great plot, great cast. Instead - yawn. I was very disappointed - felt like the movie kept building but never really went anywhere. It could have been so much better if they'd actually built the suspense, and if the actors had seemed to truly care. What a waste.

Rating:
Summary: Boring and Predictable
Review: This was a horrible waste of money. It is slow moving, anti-suspense, and uses a very predictable plot that could have been played out and summed up in under 10 minutes. By the end of this long drawn out snooze-fest, you are saying to your TV "Please, just die already, just end this movie". If you are bored and it comes onto regular tv, ok, maybe watch it. But I wouldn't recommend even paying a $1 rental fee for this one.

Rating:
Summary: 2 Starz being a little generous too...
Review: Astronaut's Wife is a whole lot of hype over nothing. I really expected better, but it turns out that the movie is one of the worst ever for Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. The movie tells the story of an alien taking over a human astronaut's body and procreating with the astronaut's wife. A story I seem to here variants of over and over and over again....

Yep, 2 stars is VERY generous...

Rating:
Summary: A very pathetic waste of time very lackluster ploit.
Review: It's ashame that director think that we wanna watch really bad movies.But whatever this director was thinking when he made this pathetic waste of film was abviously thinking he was so bored he may as well make this thing but what a waste of time because by the time you figure out the ploit if you figure it out your begging for someone to put you out your misery ,but hey when your out of sleep medicine by all means put this in and youll fall asleep pretty dang quick.

Rating:
Summary: Could have had a better ending I suppose.
Review: What is with you people. Yes, sure, the ending was predictable and rather short. The ending was seemingly allocated too little time in relation to the amount of time it took to bulid up all that suspense and puzzelment. At the end of it all, what were we really expecting other than what took place. For the first time we got a semi sci-fi horror/thriller where there was actually some form of character build up (namely Charlize Theron). Yes, despite his all star presence I too found it hard to accept MR.J.D as an executive with bleached hair and a trendy ring on his finger. But hey, this movie is designer made, it's slick, the scenes are filled with beautiful people and the kind of homes we'd like to own. It kept me watching right until the end and so i'ii only take off one star purely because of the inadequate ending. This movie delivers on what it's about by and large though. Those of you who think not should consider making movies yourselves and see if you can do a better job. To think that self-indulgent (oh look at us Americans we have so much depth ha ha ha)stuff like "The Sixth Sense" does so well. I mean, kids just aren't that sensitive and oh so mature at that age - especially in grand old culture ridden USA (joking about the culture ridden bit). Four Stars for "The Astronaut's Wife".

Rating:
Summary: Give me X Files series anytime
Review: This movie is so-so, something that I would only watch when there's nothing else for me to do. The movie is suspensful enough but once the viewers manage to figure out where it's going, it's becoming a bit stale. I do feel that the movie is built upon from a very simple premises & therefore, there's only so much that it could go. The on-your-face scary moments are deliberate as we have seen in other horror flicks. I couldn't help noticing Charlize Theron once again played a victimised wife, as she had done in the Devil's Advocate. To be truthful, the atmosphere of the movie is similar to something that's come out from X Files, even its open ended ending. Well, you would spot its uncanny resemblance with X Files especially when the credit starts to role (its font & background is exactly the same. The only absence is X Files theme song). Well, watch it if you need to but don't buy it.