An average movie

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie but since it was Richard Donner's directing debut, I still wanted to check it out. At first, I was rather pleased by the scientific approach they took to describe the events occuring, it was almost like a documentary. However, it got tedious pretty quickly and, after a while, it felt more like a boring promotional feature for the NASA. Even the narration provided by James Stewart himself (whose voice I didn't even recognized) didn't manage to make this thing more compelling to watch. They mixed this with some domestic scenes involving the pilots and their wives but these were even more tedious than the flying scenes. Once in a while, they would throw some rather uplifting music but I never felt any excitement, even when some form of danger was involved. Basically, it was the complete opposite approach then the one used in 'Top Gun' and, in this movie, the pilots were not some hot-shots but some cool headed engineers and even though I appreciated the detailed science, it was also damned soporific to watch. Fortunately, later on in his career, Donner will manage to make some pretty damned entertaining pictures ('16 Blocks', the 'Lethal Weapon' franchise, 'Maverick', 'The Goonies', 'Ladyhawke', 'Superman', 'The Omen') but this debut was a real misfire, that's for sure. To conclude, the whole thing is pretty damned boring to watch and I don't think it is really worth a look, even if you are a huge fan of Richard Donner's work.


5/10