Max Q

This movie was pointless. I can't even call it sci-fi, since that requires more from a movie than merely taking place in space. "Max Q" isn't even set in space for the entire movie. The story/plot is unoriginal, the cast isn't anything to write home about, although it would be strange with a top cast in a mediocre film... Furthermore, it's not particularly exciting or well-told. At least it's evenly balanced in a low quality sort of way, in that nothing or no one stands out. Everything is equally bland. I usually find some quality in "space flicks", even if it's just 90 minutes of semi-lame entertainment bordering on low-budget pathetic, but "Max Q" didn't even give me that satisfaction. All in all , a complete waste of time.

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.

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 film laboured along with some of the most predictable story lines and shallow characters ever seen. The writer obviously bought the playbook "How to write a space disaster movie" and followed it play by play. In particular, the stereo-typical use of astronauts talking to their loved ones from outer space - putting on a brave show in the face of disaster - has been done time and time again.

Max Q appears to have been written in the hope that the producers would throw $50 million at the project. But, judging by the latter half of the film which contained numerous lame attempts at special effects, the producers could only muster $50 thousand. To learn that the film was nominated for a "Special Visual Effects" Emmy has me absolutely gob-smacked.

I think a handful of high school students with a pass in Media Studies could have created more believable effects!

And the plot holes are too numerous to mention. But I will pick one out as an example. Now, I'm no NASA expert, but surely it's highly implausible that a worker attached to the shuttle simulator would suddenly hold a position of power in the control room when things start to go pear-shaped with the program. Surely there is someone more experienced at Mission Control who the Program Director would call on rather than a twenty-nine year old who has not been in the control room before.

The only saving grace for this film is the work of Bill Campbell. He manages to make a good attempt at salvaging something out of the train wreck that is this script.

I give this film 2 out of 10, with the above-average work of Bill Campbell in the lead role saving it from a lower mark.