The Astronaut's Wife
USA 1999. Director: Rand Ravich
Cast: Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Samantha Eggar

In this reviewer's residence, Johnny Depp can do no wrong. If Johnny Depp's in a film it's always worth watching. However, he makes it very hard sometimes to say anything positive about his movies otherwise. The Astronaut's Wife is such a movie. You want to like it, but there's not much to like. The premise was interesting, essentially revolving around what happens to a man who has been to space and back. Depp plays a NASA astronaut who during a routine space mission looses contact with Earth for about two minutes. He has no memory whatsoever of what happened during these two minutes and no one knows where he has been. Later on, when he comes back home to his wife, he acts really strange. Is the guy who went up really the same guy who came down? It all sounds like fun on paper at least and the idea of time-gaps in space and possession has been a favorite theme for believers in the Great Conspiracy since the '50s (also I think this plot has been done before in some X-Files episode, but my memory is a little vague on this). Here not much happens, though, answers are not given. Charlize Theron - best thing about the film - wanders around her appartment pregnant with twins, wondering who her husband has turned into. It's often boring and sometimes pointless. Like an expensive episode of The Twilight Zone crossed with Rosemary's Baby. Oops, I think I spoiled the surprise ending. It looks great though.