Rating: Summary: Mystery? What mystery? Review: Glad I caught this one free on TV. Surely I'm not spoiling it for you if I say that the "astronauts" impregnate their wives with alien babies? Snore...I figured that out 10 minutes into the movie. What a painfully boring movie this is.
Rating: Summary: The superb acting makes this film worth while Review: While many critics had utter distaste for "The Astronaut's Wife," I happened to enjoy this horror/sci-fi film very much. It's a lot of fun, and it has eerie cinematography that really draws the viewer into the film. But the real thing that makes this not-so-original flick worth while to watch is the superb acting from Johnny Depp ("Sleepy Hollow," "Edward Scissor Hands") and the stunning, absolutely magnificent Charlize Theron ("Devil's Advocate," "2 Days in the Valley"). Both these actors are very talented and perhaps at the top of their generation. Joe Morton (veteran co-star of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "Speed") also has a small role here, which makes it all the better. The film is about an astronaut's wife (Theron) who finds out that her husband (Depp) has come back from space and has been posessed by some alien force. He now has plans on Earth for world domination after he impregnates his wife with his alien children. This is where Morton comes in as he desperately tries to tell the astronaut's wife what is happening. The story moves along at a brisk, yet somewhat predictable pace, and it's really only the ending that proves to have any jolt of suspense and breathless unpredictability. Overall, if you enjoy this type of genre, "The Astronaut's Wife" is well worth your time and money to see.
Rating: Summary: Déjà vu Review: I had severe déjà vu watching this. Charlize Theron plays the exact same character she played in Devil's Advocate, alongside another cutie, Keanu Reeves. Except she has an extremely boyish haircut in this (does NOT suit her), and she doesn't dye her hair at any point brown, and start screaming at the slightest thing. The thing that I've noticed been said about Devil's Advocate & this is that they compare it to Rosemary's Baby. Which doesn't help if you've never seen it like me. So all the comparisons just go straight over my head. I only taped this off the TV ages ago for Johnny Depp. And wasn't too disappointed in the entire film. It had a good storyline and apart from Charlize Theron doing her one expression - bored - I did enjoy the film. Then the ending came, and I was holding onto a cushion like grim death, and hiding my face partly behind it. The ending changed my whole perspective of the film, and subsequently lowered my stars scale to 2. I didn't completely understand the ending, and my Dad got quite fed up trying to explain and figure out what exactly I didn't understand about the movie. If the ending had been left alone, and just been a happy ending (it is technically, but not the way I wanted it to be), then I would have been fine. But no, they had to go and totally confuse me. Didn't really make much sense to stupid me. Don't go into this expecting a great, Armageddon-esque film. It's not. It's a very strange film. And you definitely need to see Rosemary's Baby first, to be able to understand the comparisons!
Rating: Summary: Rosemary's Baby Ripoff Review: Yes. This movie ripoffs Rosemary's Baby. I didn't like Rosemary's Baby. This movie is worse. Compared to this film, I highly recommend Rosemary's Baby. I enjoyed Johnny Depp and Cherlize Theron's performances. Forget the story. These two people drive the movie. These two very beautiful people.
Spencer (Depp) is an astronaut. His wife, Jillian, (Theron) is a loving wife and second grade teacher. They are the epitome of all-Americans. While he's in space, his ship loses contact for 2 minutes. These 2 minutes end up changing their lives forever. No kidding. 2 minutes. This is the movie. 2 minutes. What happened in those two minutes? She begins to worry. He won't talk about it. His partner died afterward because of it, and his wife killed herself. When Jillian becomes pregnant with twins, she learns that the other wife was also pregnant with twins when she killed herself. Odd. Jillian digs deeper into this mystery until she uncovers a horror that she never imagined.
The ending. Nope. Didn't like it. Didn't like the end of Rosemary's Baby either. No vindication! Not for Rosemary or for Jillian! What happens to Jillian makes me even madder, though. See for yourself. I hope none of you watch it and say, "Oh, how poignant." Ick!! I recommend this movie solely based on the perfomances. Those are worth (I suppose) at least a look see. And, hey, if all you want to do is stare at Depp (Or Theron), by all means, get this movie. It's great for that.
Rating: Summary: Depp is very good, but movie isn't Review: This movie doesn't explain many of the questions it raises, it's illogical, and it's ultimately not very interesting. But it is worth watching just to witness Johnny Depp's versatilely as an actor. He is the rare actor who is a true chameleon, and, even when the movie isn't very good, he is always interesting to watch. Here, he plays a southern, good-old-boy, macho astronaut. Without advance notice, no one would know it was Johnny Depp. I don't agree with the Amazon review at all; his Texan accent is very real and not cornpone at all. But this is Theron's movie, and Depp's part is not big enough to salvage the movie.
Rating: Summary: a gripping thriller that is much like Rosemary's baby Review: if you like Depp: see Secret Window, Pirates of the Caribbean, Nightmare on Elm street, Sleepy Hollow, From Hell, and other movies
if you like Charlize Theron: see Psycho and other movies she's in
this is a terrifying tale
even the ending had me freaked out
it's scary how you think you know someone you love and then you find out you don't even know them and you thought you did all along
Depp plays a very peculiar role in this movie
He starts out loving , dramatic, funny, caring
and by the end he's
loathing her but trying not to show it
using her
hurting her
etc
this is one freaky but interesting movie
in a way the movie has a good ending
and in a way it's a bad ending
I like the ending
it keeps the viewers guessing on a sequal or what should happen next
but it doesn't leave you out in the cold guessing how the movie ends
the story is so creepy that I freaked out in alot of the strange parts. like the one where Depp looks in the mirror like he does. and then his wife comes in. and he this sick evil almost emotionless look on his face. that's truly terrifying. the lighting for that set or room he was in. added the perfect creepiness to that look on his face. had it been done in bright light. it would of looked lame. not scary and not had the effect it gave me. I really thought Spencer was Spencer until about the middle or slight end of the movie where more details get uncovered. a haunting tale of deception. see this movie. I shall watch it again and again and again and again and again. this will truly haunt your mind if you think you know your lover sometimes.
Rating: Summary: Awful Movie Review: Don't waste your money seeing this movie. The plot and the story are just awful, and Theron and Depp can't salvage it with their personalities or acting abilities. See their other movies which showcase their true talents.
Rating: Summary: More money shoulda been spent on the script!!! Review: I knew "The Outer Limits," and this, "Virginia", ain't no "Outer Limits".
Two astronauts lose two minutes during a routine space walk and we, the viewers, must endure one hundred and nine minutes of pure movie-watching HELL.
It's not that the stars aren't doing the best with what they've got. Depp makes an effective is-he-or-isn't-he husband of Charlize Theron, appropriately unnerved by the creepy goings on around her. Sadly, the duo is saddled with a less-than-thrilling script and an inexperienced director.
While it's great to see character actors Blair Brown, Donna Murphy, and Joe Morton, they, too, are wasted. Brown, an actress whose film career hasn't grown like her weight, has very little to do as the wife of Depp's new employer. Murphy, a well-respected stage actress, has about as much screen time here as she did in last summer's blockbuster, "Spiderman 2."
Morton is basically playing the same character, though slightly unhinged, that he played in "Terminator 2"...or was it on TV's Smallville,"...or was it "What Lies Beneath"? Either way, he doesn't have to stretch his acting chops on this one.
This is one time when the appetizer (the trailer) is more filling than the main entree (the film, itself).
Rating: Summary: Mars ain't the Kind of place to raise a Kid... Review: But it turns out it's just as cold and creepy on Earth, and cold is just how this chilly little Something-in-Outer-space-got-my-Astronaut-Husband flick serves it up. "The Astronaut's Wife" is a stylish, nastily clever, absolutely heartless, efficiently paced and admirably designed little gem of a horror movie, centering on the crux of everyone's worst fears: what if the love of my life is a ghoulish space alien who plans on destroying Earth?
When I was a little kid, I remember being scared silly by tales of outer space terror and body-snatching on those creepy "Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone" episodes. Everyone has seen at least one variation on the theme: the noble, heroic astronaut with the jutting jaw and confident swagger goes off on the Antares IV Expedition/Rocket Shoot to Planet X/Mission to the Moon, but when he comes back he's no longer himself. He's one of Them---a leering, skulking, alien horror, waiting to turn the tables on his unwitting friends, relatives, and fellow NASA employees.
That's what "The Astronaut's Wife" feels like to me: a really creepy "Outer Limits" episode with a decent budget, plus Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. Johnny Depp is perfect as the swaggering Commander Spencer Armacost, who goes up on a routine near-Earth orbit mission with his partner (played admirably by Nick Cassavetes---see, "Astronaut's Wife" is just one degree of separation from "Rosemary's Baby" after all!) one tragic day.
There is a mysterious and inexplicable electrical surge, the mission is aborted, and Armacost goes from doting husband to skulking, leering creep in one fell swoop. He acquires some interesting new habits as well, like spending quality time with the family radio. He also gets a gig as a consultant for a secret weapons lab (run by the original serial killing 'Tooth Fairy' from "Manhunter", the creepy Tom Noonan).
Charlize Theron turns in a sympathetic performance as a wife who---well, dang it, she likes the high society and the big bucks just fine, but she wishes Johnny Depp would spend less time with the radio and a little more time with her.
Her suspicions mount when a former NASA employee (the great Joe Morton doing his nervous-tic-eye-twitching paranoid thang here)tries frantically to meet with her and communicate his worst fears (that possibly her husband's quality time with the radio has something to do with the fact that he may, in fact, be a Space Alien)and the movie spends most of the rest of its time with Theron in a cat and mouse game with Depp, who, when he's not cozying up to the radio, is skulking around the house switching off lights and doing horrible things to Theron's sister (played by the always resourcefully creepy Clea Duvall). Director Rand Ravitch employs a steady hand and brings things to a boil---all cold, sleek, and subtle.
If you got creeped out by the old "Outer Limits" shows, you'll love it.
Rating: Summary: The Astronaut's [Dull, Plotless] Wife Review: I have owned The Astronaut's Wife for a long time, but have not been compelled to watch it because I'd heard it wasn't very good.
Let me put it this way - for every person who has ever called The Man Who Fell to Earth "plotless," "confusing," "weak," or "bad," I would like you to just try to watch The Astronaut's Wife, look me straight in the eyes, and tell me honestly that it doesn't suck. You won't be able to do it.
The visuals are okay, but the acting is weak beyond imagining, which is totally a let-down, given Johnny Depp's unreachable amount of talent he usually portrays in his movies - sorry, Bub, not this time.
Johnny Depp plays Spencer, an astronaut, who is up with his partner in space, repairing a satellite, when they lose contact with Earth for two minutes. When he gets back down to Earth, he doesn't want to talk about what happened up there, and he acts distant. Eventually, his partner dies, and the partner's wife electrocutes herself in the shower with a radio.
Spencer tells Jillian, his wife [Theron], that it was "dark [duh]," and "cold [duh again]" up there. They then have sex against a wall at a NASA get-together, he gets a bit rough, and she suspects something's weird.
But wait! Is Spencer an alien now, or is Jillian really crazy?!
A guy gets fired from NASA because he discovers that, during those two minutes, Spencer and his partner heard a weird sound up in space...this weird sound wave that isn't static, the satellite, etc., implying that it is indeed alien [*dramatic GASP!*]. Then the former employee says the dead lady from earlier was pregnant with twins - and [*dramatic GASP!*], so is Jillian! OH NO! So she gets some abortion pills, cries, and can't do it.
It's Rosemary's Baby! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!
The whole story is that, during those two minutes, a SOUND WAVE from aliens took over Spencer, and now he impregnated Jillian with his alien seed.
Or something. I don't know, and I don't care. It wasn't a thriller in the slightest - it was boring, drawn-out, and could easily have been chopped and smooshed into one thirty-minute TV show slot. A total waste of time and money.
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