Sadly even an exciting conclusion gives way to a rubbish final shot of slow-mo sentiment. The film ends in a stronger final 20 minutes where we get a helicopter chase and some well shot scenes with a crop duster but even these are filled with the same lack of logic that the middle section of the film suffers from. It still remains interesting and watchable but the word 'thriller' is not one that I would pick. The film should have been tighter, with a deeper conspiracy, a tangible threat and a real sense of it being a race against time but it doesn't manage it. Things happen but there is no consistent tension or excitement to speak of the astronauts are forced into one-off moments of danger but that's about it this leaves Caulfield as the main thread which, while enjoyable, still doesn't manage to cut it. What spoils it is the writing the start gives it the foundation to build on but it doesn't manage to build very much at all. However from the moment the astronauts escape the film has already taken a real dip from the good start. This is a solid start and it continues in an aborted launch that immediately sets up a premise that is so simple and so effective that it promises a great film to come. The film opens with a blacked out screen with a man introducing the mission launch to gathering (unseen) journalists. Meanwhile journalist Robert Caulfield tries to follow a suspicious lead given to him by a man inside NASA only for the man to vanish and for Robert to be nearly killed when his brakes 'fail' he investigates what he suspects but cannot believe. However when the rocket explodes on re-entry, the astronauts realize that the men in charge have only one way to keep their secret killing them. The astronauts are taken to a soundstage and informed that the mission would have failed, killing the space programme however the plan is to fake the landing and keep the funding a plan the astronauts begrudgingly agree to when they see their options are very limited. However, mere minutes before the launch, the astronauts are spirited away from the rocket while the mission goes ahead but unmanned with the vast majority of NASA, the media, the politicians and the American people completely unaware that this has occurred. America is excited by a new space launch the mission to mars putting them past their 'space fatigue'.
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