Review of Astronaut`s Wife, The

Introduction

Being a sci-fi and horror fan I found the premise of the story quite intriguing :-

Astronauts Spencer Armocast (Johnny Depp) and Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes) are on a space walk placing a new satellite in orbit when there is an explosion and the astronauts are cut off from all communications for two whole minutes. Their shuttle is brought back to earth and the two men are hospitalised. After recovering in hospital everything seems fine but it’s not long before Spencer’s wife, Jillian (Charlize Theron), starts to notice changes in her husband and startling evidence emerges that he may not be what he seems. What happened in those two minutes?

Video

Being primarily a Region 1 DVD collector I was very interested in just how good the picture quality could be with the increased resolution that PAL offers. The disc presents a superb quality 16:9 ratio picture, made all the sharper by being an anamorphic transfer. I really couldn’t find anything wrong with the picture at all. The colours were spot on and very natural in the close ups. There are a few effects scenes that are set against a very bright background yet the quality of the picture (the definition of the foreground objects and sharpness of the edges) never falters.

I really can’t write anything else about the image, I was simply amazed at the quality. Excellent stuff.

Audio

Again, as with the picture quality, I couldn’t find fault in the soundtrack at all. Films such as this always have a much harder job than say action movie or effects spectacular as they rarely have any set pieces to really give the soundstage a workout.

The soundstage is very involving and extremely well handled. The steering is excellent throughout the movie as sounds move around the room with believability. I always try and watch movies in a nice dark room and many times certain sounds made me turn around, not in fear but simply to see if someone had come into the room. This to me is the sign of a very well done soundtrack, that certain sounds can sound that real that you could mistake them for real ones.

I mentioned fear, well there were certain scenes with sound effects will make you leap, suddenly heightening your senses and making you sit up. I love soundtracks that can achieve this sort of effect even though you know something bad might be just about to happen :).

The soundtrack also comes with a very active low frequency effects channel so crank up your subwoofers and hold on to your ornaments.

Features

The usual region 2 disappointment with one exception. We get the standard theatrical trailer along with cast biographies. The menus are animated quite nicely but I always struggle to calls these really as extras as they serve no real purpose. The one saving grace is something which is missing from the region 1 DVD, and that is the original ending as submitted by the director with the original cut of the movie. Anyone how has followed any of my reviews will know that I love deleted scenes, it always fascinates me for some odd reason. After watching the alternate ending I can see why they dropped it however it is still nice to see what they originally had planned for the end of the movie.

Conclusion

I have to say that I really enjoyed this film. There is nothing that is particularly outstanding about the movie, it’s just that all the pieces work well together.

The story revolves around the “Astronauts Wife” as named in the title, in this case Jillian Armocast (Charlize Theron). As mentioned before the story involves two astronauts who are out of contact with NASA for two minutes whilst on a space walk. On returning to Earth these men appear different somehow, and when one of them dies from a massive stroke a series of events unfolds that will drive the remaining astronauts wife to the very edge of sanity.

The movie has been likened to “Rosemary’s Baby” so it’s not giving anything away if I tell you that the wife becomes pregnant. The introduction of the pregnancy serves the story line very well indeed. The slow and eventual realisation that all is not what it seems is made all the more desperate from the wifes point of view due to the pregnancy. You really start to empathise with her increasingly desperate situation as she is totally trapped by her husband.

This is one thing the film does very well. The atmosphere is very well handled and builds up throughout the film making the ending all the more enthralling. This is in no small part down to the main cast members. Charlize Theron does an excellent job as the astronauts wife. A very large part of the film hangs off of her performance and for a relatively inexperienced actress she handles it very well indeed. Johnny Depp is a little wasted in the role of Spencer Armocast, the sole surviving astronaut. He does well with the part he has to play but allot of his scenes seemed to involve him simply standing there looking mean. It’s a shame that they couldn’t have made more of the role as Johnny Depp is a very capable actor.

Going back to the “Rosemary’s Baby” reference it does bare more than a passing resemblance to the earlier movie. There are allot of very familiar plot threads and the leading lady did look very similar to the leading lady in the original movie (Mia Farrow). I could however be totally wrong as it is a very long time since I last saw “Rosemary’s Baby” but it definitely felt familiar :).

So far it all sounds great but there are a few complaints though. The plot doesn’t explain itself as much as you would like and some of the characters would have benefited from more fleshing out (as mentioned with Johnny Depp). I won’t dwell on them as, to be honest, they were minor quibbles for me.

This is a top quality DVD sadly let down by an almost non existent set of extras. Overall I really enjoyed this movie. It starts slowly and builds up the atmosphere to a great ending and kept me glued to my chair, not venturing to the fridge once! Not a classic movie but definately recommended.