Constellation

I enjoyed this movie at the Roxbury Film Festival in Boston in August 2005. It showed an interracial family that was clearly professional and it was set in the South in a non-stereotypical way. It also dealt with an ill-fated interracial love-story in a way that I thought was realistic. It had romance, tension, and good acting from all the actors. It did have the never-ending closing that is a feature of so many Hollywood films but I don't hold it against the filmmaker. It was good to see Billy Dee Williams and Lesley Warren, two under-utilized talents in my opinion. One of the ways I judge whether a film is good or not is whether it makes me care about the characters and story and want to know more. Constellation did that. I wanted to know more about Gabrielle Union's character. We see her during her youth and hear about her after her death. I wanted to know more about the intervening years. Also wanted to know more about Billy Dee Williams' character's decision to be come an expatriate. I hope the film gets released and would encourage people who are looking for a good family story to see it.

For a person of white decent and growing up in the North before living my life in the South, I found the film to be a step in right direction as far as the storyline. As with anything placed out into public scrutiny, there will always be those who feel it doesn't suit their taste. In the short time being a part of the film, cast and crew, I was allowed to see and feel firsthand the attempts by Jordan and his crew to capture the meaning of and present a subject that at times is too controversial to talk about. Cudos for stepping forward to help us, as a nation, to bridge the gap and clear up the misunderstandings that we allow to cloud our judgment. American's have the right voice their opinions, that is what is great about this country, and am proud to be currently serving to defend this right and equally proud to have been, regardless of how small, a part of this film.

I watched two episodes thinking this might get better, but it actually got worse.

This is something that must have gotten a lot of investment judging from the cast and the special effects, so why did anyone greenlight this story?

Jonathan Banks usually has pretty good sense as to what media to be a part of and I expected better, and even more so with Noomi Rapace.

I don't give 1/10 ratings very often. To me, a 1/10 review is an unwatchable show. While "Constellation" is not unwatchable in the beginning because it piques your curiosity, it is worse than unwatchable in the long run because it wastes the time it takes to watch a few episodes to realize it is unwatchable and assuming viewers are utter fools.

Another really irritating thing is how they draw things out with no reason other than to draw them out. For example, nothing on the International Space Station seems to work or be dependable.

I just feel bad that if you don't take my advice and avoid this sad excuse for a science fiction movie you will be wasting your time watching it before you quit in disgust.

Sorry ... 1/10.

I'm going to be generous here and give it a 3 only because I live in Huntsville and it was great to see how well the city was filmed. That said, this movie was pretty bad. It's like they started off with hardly any script and the director just told the actors to stare at each other meaningfully with a lot of music playing over it. And Billy D. Williams looked like he'd rather be anywhere but in this movie. It's just a mess. I think I could write a script better than the dislodge for this film, and I'm no writer.

There is one thing I've seen mentioned throughout the reviews and message boards--everyone is under the impression that the movie begins around World War 2 and actually it seemed more like it was supposed to start out in the late 1950's/early 1960's. While the military was not segregated by then, I'm pretty sure that any troops waiting to board a train would still be segregated in a place like Huntsville, Al. If the beginning of film was supposed to be the 1940's, then Billy D, Lesley Ann & Rae Dawn would have to have been in the 70's and 80's instead of their mid 50's or early 60's.

Don't waste your time unless you really, really like the actors because the story isn't very interesting.

I saw this at the Chicago Int'l Film Festival. I really liked it although it wasn't as polished as many movies we see in the theatre these days. But the characters seemed real; the dialog was so real that I asked the director, who was there, if it was ad-libbed. He said, no, maybe only 5%.

The ensemble cast was excellent; some familiar faces (Billy Dee Williams, Lesley Ann Warren, Rae Dawn Chong)...but in roles that seemed to fit them very well.

The score, some well known songs, some not, was sometimes distracting. And the last scene, a very emotional one, had music "swelling" in the background, that made it seem like a made-for-TV movie. That could be improved. But overall, I would recommend this movie to anyone (race not important) who's had to deal with unresolved family "issues".