Beyond the Stars

Whereas the background story about an ageing astronaut who has found something or someone on the Moon proved sufficiently effective despite not being resolved satisfyingly, the plot around teenage love stories and trite father-son relationships did the film no real favour. On the other hand did the film avoid entering into the domain of hard sci-fi, making it accessible and even enjoyable for a wider audience. Unfortunately, the photography, score and direction were mediocre at best. The acting wasn't really bad but the performances aren't memorable, either. The film is hard to recommend because there's too little science fiction for fans of this genre and unnecessarily much for audiences interested in personal relationships. As a cinematic product, the film is quite negligible.

Failed mish-mash of adolescent drama, preachy ecologic messages, and very weak sci-fi. The astronaut scenes on the moon look like they were filmed for a "Saturday Night Live" episode. In other words, all credibility flies out the window. Christian Slater as the aspiring astronaut, idolizes astronaut Martin Sheen who returned from the moon with a secret. The script is simplistic, preachy, and contrived. The relationship problems are simplistic, preachy, and boring. Throw in a jab at NASA for layoffs, a save the whales message, a moon crater no deeper than a backyard swimming pool, and finally the no surprise ending, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know this is a dud. - MERK

My review was written in May 1989 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Martin Sheen's ever-ready support for liberal causes isn't enough to put over "Personal Choice", a sappy, heavy-handed message picture aimed at theaters but too weak to qualify as even a made-for-tv feature.

"Cocoon" author Davod Saperstein offers a lifeless tale of an astronaut (Sheen) stricken with eventually fatal radiation poisoning during his moonwalk on a mid-1970s Apollo mission.

His bitter memories and disillusionment are rekindled when a gung-ho teen (Christian Slater) who idolizes him befriends the hermit-like Sheen while visting his divorced father, who lives nearby. Script contrivance has dad (Robert Foxworth), a NASA scientist who has been laod off, cuing a late-in-film confrontation with Sheen over who really did the work, the space scientists or the flyboys.

Despite the presence of beautiful leading ladies Olivia D'Abo and Sharon Stone (as Slater's and Foxworth's girlfriends), pic is all talk and almost no physical action. Characters remain remote and Saperstein muffs an emotional climax scene by framing a sentimental photo of a character with an in-joke of a "Cocoon" paperback in the foreground.

With cryptic flashbacks of Sheen's moonwalk ladled out every so often, film finally delives it message direct to the camera long after viewers have lost interest: from out in space one can obtain the perspective to see what we're doing on Earth, and want to fix it right now.

Icing on he cake is a laughable cameo by no less than F. Murray Abraham as a wheelchair-bound scientist (injured in an incident with a nasty Japanese whaling ship!) who exhorts us to stop killing the whales. Saperstein's message is, of course, correct and timely, but delivered in a form suitable for showing only at fundraisers attended by the committed.

Sheen is relentlessly earnest and boring, while Slater still displays those annoying Jack Nicholon inflections and mannerims (apparenty internalized) that have plagued his recent roles. If Nicholson had been cast as the astronaut (a la "Terms of Endearment") Slater's idolizing might have come off.

Lensed largely in Vancouve (with a touristy stopoff in Huntsville, Alabama, to visit NASA artifacts), pic is visually bland. A brief special-effects finale looks tacked-on and silly.

It's likely that the writer/director of 'Beyond the Stars' had good intentions to begin with, the messy, incoherent finished product leaves much to be desired. Even at eighty-seven minutes the movie feels excruciatingly long, only made worse by the mediocre production values. Excuse my bluntness, by whoever edited this movie ought to be shot in the arm repeatedly until they perish due to lead poisoning. It's that bad. The editor absolutely ruined what could have been a passable drama with their extremely unconventional (and incredibly unsuccessful) editing style. Because of this there is no sense of fluency, and one scene jerks roughly into the next. If there were a Golden Raspberry award for worst film editing, 'Beyond the Stars' would sweep it, then years from now when they did a worst in the history of film, this movie would win it hands down.

Despite the relatively weak script, Martin Sheen still manages put forth a good performance, likely the brightest spot in a dim movie. In likely the biggest casting mistake of the 20th century (besides Tom Selleck in 'Christopher Columbus: The Discovery), Christian Slater plays the lead, an 18? year old boy. Though he obviously tries hard, and it even shows through at times, Slater is one of the worst actors imaginable for this emotionally demanding role, and Slater looks much too old for the part. In a seemingly tacked on supporting role, Sharon Stone is under used, as are many of the other cast members. Even worse though, is the completely flat and uncharismatic Olivia d'Abo as the chief love interest for Slater. The two have absolutely no chemistry, and the scenes with the two together are among the film's worst.

The description on the back of the box, even in the tagline, hints at a cross between 'October Sky' and 'The Man Without a Face', two infinately better films. It succeeds at emulating neither of them, and comes off as a third rate imitator. In the last few sentences in the description, there is mention of a secret on the moon. Normally in descriptions, the writers describe the movie up to about the half way point. The secret is only mentioned at the tail end of the movie, and seems only in passing, like something used to create a good last impression (which it fails deeply at).

Though the writer/director also wrote the book Cocoon (which can be seen on Christian Slater's shelf near the end), the script here is terrible, the dialog astonishingly ridiculous, and it's no wonder at all why he hasn't worked on a film since this. As for the music, there seem to be three themes of a minute each, one for when the characters are building a greenhouse (which has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, yet seems to occupy most of it), one for whenever the moon is shown or talked about, and the third for the artificial 'sad' scenes towards the end. Though the moon theme is actually half decent, the other two are unoriginal and forgettable, much like the movie itself.

The movies end (without giving anything away) seems manufactured and contrived. It also appears that the producers ran out of money at the end of the shoot, as this reflects it. Stay far away from it, if you see the movie on the shelf in your video store, don't even think about picking the box off the rack, think of it as a small plastic case carrying the bubonic plague, just waiting to trick your VCR into playing it, then latching onto you. Martin Sheen's performance is hardly enough to make this disorganized mess worth sitting through, avoid at all costs.

1.5/10

This feel good film with a little touch of SF is a little gem and I don't think it gets the appreciation it deserves.

You shouldn't take the film too seriously but it has its heart in the right place and that's what I think is most important.

Eric dreams of a future as an astronaut, when he is more or less forced to stay with his father for a few weeks he accidentally gets the chance to meet his idol, the famous austronaut Paul Andrews, through a new girlfriend.

That first meeting doesn't go so well but gradually a friendship develops between the two.

Ok that aspect could have been worked out a bit better but basically the story is entertaining enough.

Christian Slater, Martin Sheen, and also Sharon Stone do well in their roles.