Loola Rangue

A steaming pile of horsecr*p. For starters, this film doesn't give a whit for the technological and scientific savvy of modern audiences (instantaneous radio transmissions across distances that light would take hours to traverse; the imputed ease with which one could sneak onto a rocket ship during lift-off(!); the requirement that someone need actually GO to Mars to send a radio or laser signal from that location...ever hear of recording a message and re-broadcasting it later(?!). And what exactly is the existential threat again from a guy orbiting Neptune with a 20m hi-gain antenna(?); and so on and so on and so on). That such embarrassing missteps occur is one thing, but when they occur as critical plot points (such as the aforementioned need for Brad Pitt to actually GO to Mars in order to make a transmission from there) the result can only be a distancing of the viewer from the narrative, i.e., you lose any literate viewer's trust. But forget these quibbles: what does the film's big build-up lead up to? Where we do land in all this? How is the mystery of the father's disappearance resolved? In a puddle of sappy father-son gobbledygook that answers nothing. What a waste of a film, what a waste of my time, what an insult to anyone with a brain (and a heart!).