Slingshot

The best part of this movie is the ending, which will deceive the viewer several times. Laurence Fishburne played his role, as always, perfectly. Casey Affleck did well, but I was never impressed by his performance, although this is just my personal subjective judgment. Yes, it's not easy to watch this movie to the end, and this is its main disadvantage, it was especially hard for me to watch Affleck's caramel flashbacks, but I still watched this movie - the film turned out to be quite good. Given the complexity of the plot and ambiguous characters, it is impossible not to mention the merits of the director. Visual style, musical accompaniment - all this works to create a unique closed atmosphere. The film may not become a cult classic, but it definitely deserves the attention of those who like thoughtful and ambiguous stories.

And by another one, I mean yet another arthouse psychological thriller sci-fi. Again. What ever happened to the good old Sci-fi action survival thriller where nobody is "wrestling with the ghosts of their past", struggling with their sanity, or wondering what is real or not...blah blah. Seems like the vast majority of Sci-fi is that BS, not anything really interesting or entertaining anymore. Some of them had the potential to become great movies, but were ruined by the writing and the direction... and the plot, and the story...etc.

Please.... for the love of GOD, can someone make Sci-fi great again??

There's a moment right at the end that would have elevated this film to something really worth recommending. Some movies greatly benefit from a conclusion open to interpretation. This is one of them. It gave me the same feeling I had all those years ago watching Total Recall. But they didn't do that here. The final scene is very clear and I think that was a poor choice. Unless the focus is commentary on human behavior, in which case it makes sense. Still, the alternative would have been spectacular.

How cool is Laurence Fishburne? He's been one of my favorite actors since Event Horizon + The Matrix, and in each project following that he never misses. Role of the captain he plays is pretty much perfect. Even when the twists, turns and second-guessing begins, it still fits whatever outcome you may have in mind. That kind of presence and versatility is pure talent, and I never get tired of seeing it. Everybody else does a great job in their respective roles, but Morpheus steals the show.

They likely could have removed 15 minutes and the film would have been better for it. You can definitely feel some drag. While this doesn't outright ruin anything, I probably would have rated it higher otherwise.

Mindgames and science fiction have traditionally gone together well. This one played a lot of mind games and it was done on a lower budget, I expect.

Pure psychological science-fiction with several twists at the end. It was one of those films that you really didn't know where it was going until it got there. I liked how it flipped back and forth between the past and the current deep space expedition. It helped put things in context.

Affleck and Fishbourne played their roles to the tee. At a certain point it felt redundant but I guess it was not unexpected given the outcome.

In a year or so it will probably get relegated to endless repeats on one of the streaming film channels.

The script lacks in the science and engineering department, and the characters seem incompetent.

Within the first 20 minutes, we already know the main protagonist is an unreliable narrator who exudes whatever the opposite of confidence and leadership is. His crewmate is similarly unreliable, talking behind the captains back. The captain calls the spaceship an 'aircraft' and handwave-explains 'fatigue and buckling' despite there being no explanation for what would cause cyclic stresses on the structure. We also got in the first 30 minutes that their mission is to reach Titan's methane, to make fuel, to somehow solve climate change. It all just sounds like mumbo-jumbo written by an arts student.

You need something like Andy Weir's 'The Martian' or the upcoming Project Hail Mary adaption; i.e. The best-of-the-best astronauts being actually believable world-class highly trained and skilled experts and problem-solvers. The physics doesn't have to be 100% in a sci-fi (Interstellar worked pretty well throughout bar that one line about love transcending space and time), but for any deviations the characters have to 100% support the narrative for it to be believed by the audience. These astronauts are immediately whispering to each other about mutiny from the start... and keep forgetting that there's audiovideo recording in each room allowing the captain to hear the sceme. I can't believe that these characters are actually astronauts.

Please please please stop with this artificially induced drama hinging on main characters being incompetent, keeping secrets from each other, or scheming against each other for no good reaon. Stop with the secrets which the 3rd party witnesses... It's like where movies have 2 people talk or kiss, for the 3rd jealous person to spot it or to get the wrong impression. It's a frustrating cliche. If the drama would be resolved by one character speaking one sentence to another character, it's weak writing.

With Insterstellar, I felt awe that made my arm hairs stand on end. With Slingshot I just feel frustrated and claustrophobic. Slingshot is weak writing.