This was a fun little adventure film about how NASA fakes the first landing on Mars, and then tries to kill their astronauts to protect their secret.
This movie drags like hell. It focuses on one of three astronauts coerced into helping fake the landing, and the two secondary astronauts were basically pointless with incredibly forced attempts at character development. One of the useless astronauts was played by OJ Simpson, and given all his actions since then, it makes an already mediocre film hard to watch. Simpson also sucks as an actor. I liked the arc of the reporter with the failing career, but his development, and his one-note boss was forced forced.
This is a movie with an interesting premise – people in power have the opportunity and motives for these kinds of public deceptions. It just wasn’t well executed. The action at the end was fun if hammy, but the drama was just not anywhere to be found in anyone important. At the end, when NASA and the government realized their charade was up, they didn’t look upset. They just looked kinda bored and inconvenienced. The wife of the main astronaut character, who believed he was dead, only ever seemed mildly annoyed. This film could get remade with a better cast and a cleaned up script, but honestly its message would be told better in a modern context with a different premise.
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