Approaching the Unknown
Approaching the Unknown
R | 03 June 2016 (USA)
Approaching the Unknown Trailers

Captain William Stanaforth is on a one-way solo mission to take the first steps in colonising Mars. Like all pioneers throughout history, Stanaforth will face insurmountable odds and life and death decisions as he rockets bravely through space.

Reviews
Sexyloutak

Absolutely the worst movie.

... View More
Intcatinfo

A Masterpiece!

... View More
Ariella Broughton

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

... View More
Staci Frederick

Blistering performances.

... View More
dukac_duki

I thought it was a parody. Don't waste your time, the movie can't be more awful!

... View More
koen_kwak

The whole idea of this movie is very interesting, the psychological effects of being the first human being that goes to Mars.However, 7 points are taken from Slytherin because this movie gave me the constant feeling that something lacked. Be it realistic communication with Earth, or the way the portrait space missions in the movie's version of the ISS or the fact that they send the main character on a mission to Mars, with 1 self-developed machine that has been tested apparently once (?), at least, it's not working very early in the movie and there seems to be no communication about this or any help from Earth, or any back-up etc etc. Whatever version of NASA this is, they would never-ever let this happen. Furthermore, they would not send two guys from the street to control the ISS, while their mental health is obviously in a terrible state.I mean, Earth-bound colleague Skinny (who also wants to go to Mars) is sitting in his office and seems to be Skyping casually, exclusively and in real-time, with the astronaut about all topics that concern this mission, there is no ground control or a command center as far as we can see. Basically, Skinny is all of those and calls every now and then to help in absolutely no way at all. Said astronaut is the first human being going to Mars, you cannot convince me this is how communications and aid from Earth would look like. They might as well have given him a cyanide pill and save him, and us for that matter, the trouble. The way this movie portrait a possible first mission to Mars is impossibly unrealistic and gives a cheap set-up for the development of the story-line. I would also argue that it takes a dump on the immensely well-developed and elaborate training programs and professionalism of any serious space organisation. I would not recommend, even though its somewhat entertaining at times.

... View More
David Jones

Hard to know where to begin with this one. First, I suppose I'll tackle the mission design, which consists of two separate spacecraft, one containing a lone man and the other a single woman, headed to Mars a couple of weeks apart. Not sure why this would be. Every mission to Mars on the boards consists of at least six astronauts--per spacecraft. Maybe they thought they couldn't keep their hands off each other if they put them in the same spaceship?But then, this mission appears to have been conceived by a wanna-be astronaut who thought it would be a good idea to maroon himself in the desert as a motivational exercise to help him engineer some kind of machine that turns rock into water. If he doesn't die of thirst, first.Second. . . did you know there are mysterious and colorful nebulae floating somewhere between Earth and Mars? Neither did I. But apparently there are--and they look great!That's not nearly as unbelievable, though, as a space station located three weeks from Earth populated by a couple of moping astronauts. But apparently, our Mars-bound spacecraft has to stop there for "supplies"--an utterly idiotic notion for anyone familiar with physics.Did the writer/director of this movie do *any* research at all? I don't see how he could have. Scanning even the briefest article on colonizing Mars would have upended the premise of this film.Look, I'd be willing to forgive all the technical inaccuracies if this movie had a strong story or offered some kind of insight into human behavior, but about two-thirds of the way through it devolves into this rambling. . . I hesitate to call it "philosophical". . . meditation on. . . something. Most of what the protagonist spews out is just oddly random non sequiturs. There are tips of the hat in this film to The Martian, Silent Running, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The reason this compares so poorly to any of those classics isn't the ultra-low budget of this film; it's the writing.Good performance by Mark Strong, but he just has so little to work with. At least he eventually gets to Mars. As a viewer, I felt as if I was left on the launch pad.

... View More
GreenBottles

The main character correctly asserted that there is more space between our atoms than mass... coincidentally there was more space in this movie than plot. The interest in Sci-fi lately has been boosted by realistic and scientifically based premises, even if somewhat stretched. This movie lacks any credibility.

... View More