En approchant l'inconnu

I can see why 'Approaching the Unknown' would not be to everyone's liking. It's very much a slow-burner of a film and is really more of a character study than anything else. With space movies I think people have come to expect drama filled, save-the-world type films and this is simply not that. This is the story of a man who has embarked on a mission that very few people on Earth would be brave enough to do, and the struggle he consequently went through.

I actually quite enjoyed it for the most part. A film with basically only one character is never going to be the most exhilarating watch, however the pacing of the film doesn't feel overly slow. Mark Strong in the lead role does a good job of being just interesting enough in what would have been a very tough role to take on.

As mentioned, this won't be for everyone. People who go into this expecting an 'Armegeddon' or even 'Gravity' type film are going to be let down and I suspect that is a lot of the reason why this film has not been received very well. However if you go in simply expecting a solid exploration of astronaut life and the challenges they can go through mentally, I think you will find yourself quite enjoying this one.

I had great expectations for this movie after seen the trailer, that looked amazing. Well, what a disappointment this film was. Is not that the acting was bad, or the production values. Neither the visual effects, which are OK. It's just that NOTHING happens... at least nothing that can move the spectators to feel, or even THINK something. The whole thing is an exercise on futility, good concepts wasted and pretentious sequences of slow motion stuff trying to be philosophical or something, but just coming out... lame. If you want to see an exciting, deep, or even entertaining sci fi space film, look somewhere else.

The daily routines, boredom, fixing the issues as he goes along.. it's all a very good projection of what one would go through on a trip that far in space. One initially might think it an exciting journey and while it would be, it's the daily monotony, repeating itself and enduring that which would be the major challenge .. assuming the ship has allvthe tech and science it needs to get one there. I found it interesting. Good watch.

I was told that this movie was going to be better than Gravity. Man, that's big shoes to fill and Approaching the Unknown could not fill them. For the most part, the film is total propaganda for all of us who support getting to Mars. In that sense, the film has a great concept.

Mark Strong plays an astronaut who willingly signed up for a one way trip to Mars not just so that he could get to Mars, but so that we as a whole can finally get to Mars.

It will appeal to you regardless, if you are a fan of the recent campaigns to go to Mars, but I need to warn you, if you heard the same rumor that this was as good as Gravity, it's not at all.

The story is exciting but the film making is not. I don't want to judge the filmmakers harshly on what is a low budget film with some cool art direction (I did like the space suit Strong wears), but this movie does nothing with the little they had.

All the actors in it who also include Luke Wilson and Sanaa Lathan seem to be phoning in their performances, this may have a lot to do with the bad writing to a cool story. The movie counts on a lot of dialogue that is not that interesting and puts me to sleep.

Mark Strong in Approaching the Unknown is not as interesting to watch for 90mins as Matt Damon in the Martian for over two hours. It's pretty much the same film in a lot of ways, but Strong, who I like, was not as charismatic and could not grasps me enough to keep me interesting.

I'm on the same boat as Approaching the Unknown as I would love to see Mars even if it means never coming back to Earth, and I wished this movie was better, but it's boring.

Following the success of movies like Moon, someone thought it would be a good idea to try with a movie about a mission towards Mars. Mark Strong starts off as an astronaut that is sent there and thinks about his place in the world and talks to people on Earth. It got me excited. Yet by the end I couldn't decide if I am to feel stupid or offended.

Alarm bells started to ring in my mind almost immediately. The personality of the guy was unstable to being cowboyish. The science didn't add up. The atmospheric dye effects had no connection to space or to the story. The water got contaminated by a battery short?! The astronaut's motivation to go to Mars was specifically because he liked the feeling of dying. I mean, come on!

But even with all this aside - and I am capable to putting aside the technical aspects - the film is actually saying nothing concrete. Should we abandon going to space because it is folly or is it that the writer has so little faith in NASA that he thinks all astronauts will be allowed to be depressed artists that write their journal with pencils and feel lonely in space? Is there a point to all the inner dialogues of the guy or is he just losing his mind in this really slow movie? We don't know.

Bottom line: I liked the production values of the film and the acting, but I couldn't get my head around what the writer/director was trying to say. It's time artsy folk understand that not only engineers are a completely different type of people from them, but that writing and directing your own movie is only rarely a good idea.