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.

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.

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.

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.

Though advertised as a 'film' (i.e. theater movie) in the TV guide, IMDb confirmed the obvious signs of a TV movie. Things I thought were cheap: the use of the solo e.guitar to emphasize heroism (this effect is so cheap that refer to it as 'the p*rn guitar') and a man's choir to emphasize determination, or something. The wobbly camera in the a-drift (but stable) spaceship. I don't mean the shots done by the astronaut, those looked believable by its light-weight camera jerkyness. Things that needed a little imagination: The blowtorch, not only to imagine where the oxygen came from, but also how a soldering device can cut through metal (and give off sparks doing so). And why astronauts shift their weight from one leg to the other, moving around in a shuttle in orbit. Things that could have been worse: The animation of the tolling spacecraft, and how the crew experienced and handled it. The dialog - a lot of it sounded quite natural. There's no obligatory heat or animosity in discussions, no improbable loads of wit. Some cheesy stuff like the grinning bum in the end, or the surprise of the motorists on the improvised runway. Good for a chuckle though. Containing a lot of standard ingredients, but also showing skill (camera, lighting... no artwork however). Errors (out of laziness, time pressure?) and fair accuracy.