Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21990 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-04-24
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
An intriguingly creepy premise but failed execution marks The Astronaut's Wife, a stylish and ultimately bland thriller about a pretty, young woman whose pretty, young astronaut husband comes back from his most recent space mission a little... odd. Before that fated space trip, Spencer (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charlize Theron) were a sunny, happy couple with matching blonde hairdos and a predilection for romping in the sack from extremely clever camera angles. However, after a communications blackout brings Spencer and his partner back down to earth prematurely, things are a little... peculiar. Spencer's partner goes bonkers and has a heart attack; on top of that, the partner's wife takes a fatal shower with a plugged-in radio. Getting out of the space biz, Spencer accepts a job as a corporate exec in New York, and as a welcome to the Big Apple for his comely wife, he molests her at the company cocktail party. Soon enough, Jillian is pregnant, but as you might expect, this pregnancy (twins, don't you know) is a little... unusual. Writer-director Rand Ravich takes his sweet time getting from extremely obvious plot point A to even more obvious plot point B, stretching out the development particulars in mind-numbing, suspense-killing fashion. Even Joe Morton, as a sinisterly psychotic NASA official, can't liven things up--you know you're in bad thriller territory when the biggest scare comes from a light suddenly being switched off. Theron, sporting a Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby style haircut, sleepwalks beautifully through the movie, but she did this role much, much better in The Devil's Advocate. Depp, with a cornpone Southern accent, is about as realistic as his peroxided hair. Ravich does the viewer no favours with a hackneyed ending straight out of a B-grade paperback horror novel in which the most shocking moment is Theron's sudden emergence as a brunette. With Blair Brown as a jaded socialite who offers to help out Theron by providing do-it-yourself abortion pills, and a lovely Donna Murphy as the suicidal wife who figures it all out before everyone else. -- Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Special Features
16:9 Wide Screen
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Alternative Ending
Trailer
Cast Biographies
English

Synopsis
In this psychological thriller, NASA astronaut Spencer Armacost (Depp) and his wife Jillian's (Theron) lives are propelled into utter dismay upon Spencer's return home from a space mission that lost contact with Earth for two minutes. What happened during those frightening 120 seconds in space will effect their marriage, sanity, and ultimately threaten their lives. Screenwriter Rand Ravich's (CANDYMAN - FAREWELL TO THE FLESH) directorial debut.

Customer Reviews

5 Star Cast in a 3 Star Movie
Now I like Johnny Depp a lot, but I feel that this movie does not extract the full measure of talent he has to offer and that's not any fault of his.

Both lead roles are played smack bang on. Charlize Theron is stunning and well cast as ever.

Perhaps it is because JD's character is wiped out by some nebulous alien entity within 15 minutes and thereafter is a pretty cold fish and unsympathetic to boot. I suppose that a creature able to travel at light speed without the need for a spaceship or spacesuit will consider Earth's human occupants similar to pond life. It's a wonder such a creature would need to go through the niceties of trying to integrate with us at any level, but this one does supposedly in order to impregnate a human to further its own species - but why would it need to?

I just kept thinking, "Why is it bothering?"

The version I saw was the DVD with "Alternate Ending" and I found it more satisfying than the other ending packaged with it. Quite frankly, by the time I'd got to the ending if JD's head had burst open and a UFO had flown out I would have been quite ready for it and not surprised at all.

It's the script and the anonymous alien that makes this movie somewhat unsatisfactory to me. I'm not sure why JD went in for it after his display of talent in Benny & Joon and The Brave to quote two of his diverse roles.

Not a tour de force piece of cinema in my book but well acted.

Hidden Depps
I have read these reviews with interest and I have to say I m still not sure about this one. I have such faith in JD's understanding of his roles that I think that this so subtle- verging on the not there build up from a sweet all American guy to a ruthless, single minded non human may have been an interpretation of what it could be like to be replaced by an alien- without the movie stereotype we have all grown up with.

Is it possible that the cold looks, the extraordinary transformation over a few minutes in the love scene and the unflinching expression when Jo strokes his cheek further on in the story are all the clues we are meant to get?

Is it just a very subtle metamorphisis- or doesn't it work?

Anyone care for further debate on this one. I would still say worth watching... but odd

Enthralling, Chilling, scary....
This film had me gripped from beginning to end. If you're like me and enjoy being made to jump out of your skin, but don't want to see blood and guts everywhere, then this stylish Sci Fil thriller is for you. I disagree with another reviewer about the so called predictable end, I for one was not prepared for the outcome. Although there is one similar theme in this film to 'Rosemary's Baby,it has been totally updated into a stylish and modern take on it.

All the way through the film there is a sense of dark menace which Depp portrays to ice cold perfection.

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