The Astronaut

Nothing about this movie makes any sense to me. It looks fantastic, if I had this on in the background with the sound down, I would guess it was fair to good film, but turn the sound on and start paying attention and forget it. The story, the characters, the bombastic sound all make this feel like a fever dream miss mash of derivative scenes from other sci fi films to the point where I kinda guessed what to expect by the end, I wasn't quite right but pretty close.

There is little logic on display and every character comes across as selfish and unlikable so it's hard to care less what happens to any of them, except the cute little girl but that's a kind of a given Kids are cute through no fault of their own. I realise it is incredibly difficult to make a movie never mind a good one but I still don't understand how such weak logic and characters can muster so much budget, support and quality crew.

The idea of the twist was great; execution was horrible. This movie had so much potential to be a real hit. I agree with some; it started off somewhat good, but I don't know; it just went left and never came back. They tried they really did but the ending was such a disappointment. This is one of those movies that should be 2hrs+ long.

Initially I was lured into watching "The Astronaut" as the movie's cover/poster really was interesting, plus the fact that it was a movie that I had neither seen nor actually heard about also helped to make me want to watch it. I had no idea what I was in for here, aside from it being a sci-fi thriller. Normally, then sci-fi is not my go-to genre for entertainment, but every now and again I do venture down that path.

I found the storyline to be entertaining. Writer Jess Varley was good at setting the stage and slowly building up suspense, without going overboard, and always keeping the audience in the dark and in suspense. So thumbs up for that. However, the ending of the movie was rather cheesy. I am not saying that it was a bad ending, but it was definitely a campy one.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Kate Mara, Laurence Fishburne and Ivana Milicevic. The acting performances in the movie were good.

The effects in the movie were okay. The aliens did look a bit too CGI generated, and not in a particularly convincing way, which was a little bit disappointing.

I was genuinely and adequately entertained throughout the course of the 90 minutes that the movie ran for. But it is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing, as there simply isn't sufficient contents in the script to support more than a single viewing.

My rating of writer and director Jess Varley's 2025 movie "The Astronaut" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Edit: If anyone is getting paid, it's people giving this a rating over 5/10 stars and down voting critical reviews. My review is honest and somehow the next day my review has multiple down votes. I watch 1000s of movies. I rated this fairly. There's no way out of all movies ever made, this is above a 5/10. I'm being generous. Also, look at the count. How many people have reviewed this. That says more than the actual reviews. NOBODY is watching it or even cares to review it.

I just read another review, sorry but nobody is paying people to give this movie a bad review.

The actors did a great job.

I was actually into the movie until the final act. The other reviewers are spot on. Not sure what the writers were thinking. Feels like they ran out of time or just didn't care about the end.

The CGI looks like a low budget film from 25 years ago. It would've been better if they left out the majority of it.

Everything was great until the final act.

Bad dialogue, cliche storytelling, annoying sound design, Mara's performance is uninspired, and pacing is slow because of the predictability. The twist near the end might be its only redeeming quality, but it won't be for everyone. I was also almost offended by the blatant rip offs of not 1, but 2 Steven Spielberg films (Jurassic Park and ET). There were also nods to Alien with steam blowing into the scenes to create atmosphere and tension, but it makes zero sense these blasts of steam would be in a house, so it makes one feel like the director is not respecting the intelligence of the audience. Skip this flick if you respect your time.