Movie Review - The Astronaut's Wife

Movie Title

The Astronaut's Wife

Year

1999

Genre

Sci-Fi, Suspense, Retro (pre-2000)

Story

Commander Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) is part of a highly trained 2-man team of astronauts who while on a routine mission in space, lost contact with NASA for 2 minutes. Both return home with seemingly no injuries but his partner Capt. Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes) starts showing tell-tale signs that all is not right. Soon, it leads to Streck's death followed shortly after by his wife, who apparently committed a gruesome suicide by electrocution in the bathroom.

Spencer soon announces that he's leaving the space program to become a test pilot.

Spencer's wife Jillian (Charlize Theron) welcomes the move but feels uneasy as she hadn't fully recovered from the depression of losing 2 family friends. Jillian soon finds herself pregnant, but she starts to notice little 

changes in her husband that unsettles her. She soon questions her own sanity when she begins to doubt whether there was something wrong with her husband. Especially so after the NASA liaison Sherman Reese (Joe Morton) warns Jillian that Spencer may not be what he appears to be. More eerily so after he reveals to her that she's having twins despite having no prior knowledge or details of her pregnancy AND her friend, Capt. Alex Streck's wife was also carrying twins when she electrocuted herself.

She then in caught in a race against time to find out the truth about her husband and everything surrounding the 2-minute incident in space.

Acting

Johhny Depp, altho' being the main star of the show, didn't really do much in this one. Instead, I found Charlize Theron to have stolen the limelight for this one. One thing with watching older movies is that you get to see the big Hollywood stars when they were so much younger and how the have developed their raw talent over the years. 

Even from this movie, made back in 1999, you can see that Charlize Theron was bound for stardom as she can really emote - from worry & fear to joy & paranoia. 

Overall

I found myself really enjoying it rather more so than the average viewer (as can be attested by the low IMDB rating of only 5.1). However, I must qualify that I allowed myself to be fully immersed into the story and hence, I believe that enhanced my viewing experience. 

Of course, for most fans of the Horror genre, this is a walk in the park as CGI was still in its nascent stage and this was not really a horror movie, but rather a suspenseful mystery movie with elements of horror.

If you havent watched it before, I would suggest it's worth a look. If you have watched this before and are a fan of Johnny Depp or Charlize Theron, I would recommend a re-watch as well.

Go give it a go & let me know.

Rating:

6.5/10