The Astronaut's Wife |  | Director: Rand Ravich
Actors: Charlize Theron, Johnny Depp, Joe Morton, Clea DuVall, Donna Murphy
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
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Rating:  149 reviews
Sales Rank: 22390
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 794043490620
ISBN: 0780628551
UPC: 788687303231
EAN: 9780780628557
ASIN: 0780628551
Theatrical Release Date: August 27, 1999
Release Date: February 8, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
ASTRONAUTS WIFE (DVD/ST&WS)-NLA
Amazon.com
An intriguingly creepy premise but failed execution marks this stylish and ultimately bland thriller about a pretty, young woman whose pretty, young astronaut husband comes back from his most recent space mission a little... odd. Before that fated space trip, Spencer (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charlize Theron) were a sunny, happy couple with matching blonde hairdos and a predilection for romping in the sack from extremely clever camera angles. However, after a communications blackout brings Spencer and his partner back down to earth prematurely, things are a little... peculiar. Spencer's partner goes bonkers and has a heart attack; on top of that, the partner's wife takes a fatal shower with a plugged-in radio. Getting out of the space biz, Spencer accepts a job as a corporate exec in New York, and as a welcome to the Big Apple for his comely wife, he molests her at the company cocktail party. Soon enough, Jillian is pregnant, but as you might expect, this pregnancy (twins, don't you know) is a little... unusual. Writer-director Rand Ravich takes his sweet time getting from extremely obvious plot point A to even more obvious plot point B, stretching out the development particulars in mind-numbing, suspense-killing fashion. Even Joe Morton, as a sinisterly psychotic NASA official, can't liven things up--you know you're in bad thriller territory when the biggest scare comes from a light suddenly being switched off. Theron, sporting a Mia Farrow-Rosemary's Baby haircut, sleepwalks beautifully through the movie, but she did this role much, much better in The Devil's Advocate. Depp, with a cornpone Southern accent, is about as realistic as his peroxided hair. Ravich does the viewer no favors with a hackneyed ending straight out of a B-grade paperback horror novel in which the most shocking moment is Theron's sudden emergence as a brunette. With Blair Brown as a jaded socialite who offers to help out Theron by providing do-it-yourself abortion pills, and a lovely Donna Murphy as the suicidal wife who figures it all out before everyone else. --Mark Englehart
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 149
 Impressive January 9, 2010
Sara (United States)
This movie is a class thriller. You can't look away! I had a dream some years ago very similar to the plot of this movie, but I have never seen this movie until now. What if an astronaut brought something back with him from outer space? If his wife becomes pregnant, is she carrying her husband's child or the child of this alien being? It preys on the underlying fears of humanity of being systematically wiped out.
But this movie is NOT about the spread of an alien virus around the globe. It's a psychological thriller on a smaller scale, between a husband and a wife. The scenes are passionate and riveting. The wife begins to suspect that something is wrong after one of her husband's colleagues dies (presumably of natural causes.) The colleague's wife then presumably commits suicide. The wife, who has just learned she is pregnant, starts to wonder what happened to her husband up in space during his lost two minutes of communication with NASA. She is approached by a former employee of NASA who says he has answers for her, so she reluctantly agrees to meet him. She follows the information he gives her, which leads her to the truth. She begins having mental visions of her babies and of what her husband is doing in the present. There is a fantastic twist ending that I did not see coming.
This is NOT a movie for those interested in blood and gore. It's along the lines of Rosemary's Baby or maybe the Pelican Brief if you want some comparisons. I'm thoroughly impressed, and wonder how I could have missed this gem when it was out in theatres.
Great Buy June 28, 2009
G. Koontz (Olathe, Ks)
This was a great buy!!! Love both actors, and I never want to go into space
!!
 Is he or is he not? (3.5 stars) April 28, 2009
M. B Cole (Las Vegas, NV)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Commander Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp), an astronaut and a loving husband to Jillian (Charlize Theron), is lost in space for 2 minutes along with his partner Captain Alex Streck during a routine space walk to repair a broken satellite. After coming back to earth, tests are run on them and everything comes up ok on Spence, but Alex's heart takes a beating. He survives, but barely. The recordings that their suits picked up have them screaming in panic, but apparently, nothing happened. During a party that is thrown for the two astronauts, Alex suddenly and quite freakishly dies leaving his wife behind who begins to say some strange things about him to Jillian. As time goes by, an ex NASA employer comes to Jillian to tell her that he's discovered some strange things about her husband Spencer's readings. How everything is the same, but just a tad off. As pieces being to come together, she begins to second guess who her husband really is more and more. Did her husband return from space, or did something else? Or is she just going insane?
I like this movie. Yeah, sometimes it felt a little drawn out, but I liked it. Until the ending that is. The whole movie felt very `what if'ish' to me. As in, "What if he is or isn't an alien" "What if she's just going nuts". I really don't think you can tell what's going on, until the very Hollywood ending. And when I say that I mean that Hollywood decided we were too stupid to decide on our own what happens, so they just let you know. Up until the ending though, I felt like I was watching a pretty good thriller. When we find out that Jillian had been locked up in a nut house before, you really don't know what to think. And every little thing you've seen becomes a `Well...this could be the reason' sort of idea.
In the end I would say give it a rent if you've never seen it. Johnny Depp plays his party really well. So does Charlize, even though it felt and looked like she was doing Devils Advocate at the same time (same craziness and same short hair).
P.S. My ending that I came up with would've been really good and I think had made the movie better.
 One of the Worst Films I've Seen in a While March 19, 2009
Joshua Miller (Coeur d'Alene,ID)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If the script for Rosemary's Baby had been sold in 1999, rewritten by a total idiot to accommodate the then-success of TV's "The X-Files" that script would've been re-titled The Astronaut's Wife.
It's a movie that is almost grossly unoriginal. A movie that wastes no time jumping right into the "action" of the plot, but then feels drawn out in the middle-section.
Academy Award-nominee Johnny Depp (Best Actor, Finding Neverland (Widescreen Edition)) stars as Spencer Armacost and Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron (Best Actress, Monster)
As his wife Jillian Armacost. Spencer is an astronaut...I know you hadn't already guessed this, so I thought I'd let you know. Within minutes of the start time, Spencer and his fellow astronaut Alex Streck (Nick Cassavettes, the director of The Notebook (New Line Platinum Series)) are blasted off into space. Minutes after that, Jillian is contacted by NASA and informed that they have lost contact with Spencer for two minutes. Both Spencer and Alex return to Earth fine....But, within minutes, Alex has died of an apparent stroke and his wife has committed suicide. Taking no time to grieve, Spencer resigns from NASA and accepts an executive job with an aerospace firm. Spencer and Jillian relocate to New York and Jillian becomes pregnant with twins. Soon, a former NASA employee tracks down Jillian convinced that what happened to Spencer during those two minutes was something supernatural...Extraterrestrial even.
I doubt you'll even care when the film reaches this point. An hour into The Astronaut's Wife, I didn't care about the characters or what was going to happen to them. I didn't care what happened to Spencer during those two minutes. The script and these characters give you nothing to care about.
It's a film that seems to suspect its audience is a bunch of idiots. It explains things we already know and toys us with the notion that Spencer may be an alien, which we already guessed.
Furthermore, it's billed as a "thriller," when there's nothing thrilling about it. There's nothing ominous or menacing about it, despite how hard it tries to be both of these things. Worse, its got a dramatic musical score that attempts to create false tension, including the clichéd LOUD MUSIC cue when a character opens a refrigerator to find another character standing behind it.
It is filled with ridiculous, textbook dialogue throughout. When character's meet, we're treated to the old:
"Hi, my name is..."
"Oh, you must be..."
"Of course, [insert witty comment]."
"[Laugh]"
"Call me."
How embarrassed was Johnny Depp to recite the "explanation" of what "happened" to him during those two minutes?
This can't even be saved by the star power of Depp and Theron in performances that have PAYCHECK written all over them. Theron, a talented actress, cries and contemplates throughout. Her hairstyle is clearly a not-so-subtle tip-of-the-hat to Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby." As if the near plagiarism of the film's plot wasn't enough.
Finally, we're treated to a nonsensical finale that most people will miss because they will be sound asleep by the time the film reaches this point.
The Astronaut's Wife is nothing more than Rosemary's Baby by way of The X-Files, lacking in both the intelligence and entertainment value of the two.
In a word: Horrible.
GRADE: D
Not The Best But Worth Watching Once In A While. Great January 27, 2009
Felicia Reed (Saint Paul, MN USA)
This is by far not the best science fiction movie that I have seen, it has a great love scene in it and the ending is a surprise. Johnny Depp is just pretty to look at in any movie that he is in.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 149
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