Being an astronaut and setting foot on other planets may have sounded like a fun, exciting thing to do as a kid, but as Hollywood has been very eager to point out recently, space travel is actually unpredictable, dangerous, and honestly, kind of a drag. Approaching the Unknown is the latest in the new “space sucks” genre, and it seems like the movie’s going to make Matt Damon’s trials on Mars look like a walk in the park.
Approaching the Unknown stars Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, The Imitation Game) as Captain William Stanaforth, the one-and-only person aboard the the first manned mission to Mars. Luke Wilson co-stars as the requisite mission control guy. Even when the mission is going well, Approaching the Unknown paints a fairly unflattering picture of space travel – lots of shots of Strong grimly going through the patterns of his limited life. When things do go wrong, Strong’s character then spirals into madness rather that pulling himself up by his space bootstraps Matt Damon-style.
Approaching the Unknown is being helmed by first-time director Mark Elijah Rosenberg, so it’s hard to say for sure how it will turn out, but it looks like a solid slice of galactic grimness. The film hits theaters June 3.
(via Indie Wire)
