Max Q

In a running time less than 1 1/2 h this TV-movie (!) packs the whole Apollo 13 concept and generates more suspense than Armageddon. It focuses on good, old MacGyver-style problem-solving and when it comes to an end it serves us a wildly over-the-top but fun emergency landing.

Only problem.... it has nothing to to with reality...but I don`t care. This one really surprised me. Best Bruckheimer for me. His big screen movies are mostly big misunderstandings of what entertainment should be.

This movie, essentially a modern-day _Apollo 13_, was entertaining in the tradition of Jerry Bruckheimer films. Overall, I enjoyed it, though performances from Campbell and Brewster were fairly flat. In my opinion, Geoffrey Blake was the standout, playing a civilian filmmaker sent to document the launch of the corporate satellite. He created a character that was easy to identify with and entertaining to watch. Overall, this is light, low-budget entertainment; people in search of a rip-roaring blockbuster would do better to rent _Armageddon_ again. But as made-for-TV movies go, this one is a standout.

Obviously the writers of this mulch had this brief - "Imagine Apollo 13 but on the shuttle with a sexy imperiled crew trying to get back to earth". If this sounds stupid, that is because it is.

Throw in some dreadful special effects, a low budget, a total disregard for reality & physics and a plot which consists of one over the top crisis after the next and a happy ending. The actors however do make the best of a bad situation, but this one is a total dud.

With knowledge of NASA and the space shuttle, I have to say that this movie was DREADFUL. It was slapped together in under two months with hardly any research and had even less accuracy than Armageddon. I find it shocking that they were actually able to land an astronaut (who I will not name) as technical advisor and still be so far-fetched. The acting was horrific, the special effects looked like something out of an FAA crash animation video, and some of the concepts (assigning a news reporter to the mission a day before launch, using a blow torch in space, and landing the space shuttle on an L.A. highway) are too far-fetched even for a 70's James Bond (Moonraker seemed more real than this). I find it hard to believe that this was made by the same guy who did Top Gun and Crimson Tide. Don't get a popcorn bucket for this one, get an air sickness bag.

The plot was not good.

The special effects weren't.

The acting was... not very good at all.

Like others, I felt there were numerous holes in the plot that you could fly, well, a space shuttle through.

I thought the ending was rather unbelievable.

By the way guys, about the "blow torch in space".

Blow torches have their own supply of oxygen (Hence the name "Oxy-Acetylene torch"). Two hoses run from the torch: One to an acetylene bottle and one to an oxygen bottle.

So a "blow torch" would work just fine in space.