Slingshot is a disappointing, yet unsurprising mediocre science fiction film directed by Mikael Håfström and written by R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker. It does have a reliable and talented cast which just about makes it tolerable. Casey Affleck plays the lead role of an astronaut named John with Laurence Fishburne and Tomer Capone along on the rather perplexing space journey. Emily Beecham and David Morrissey are also included, so the acting chops are there.
There are some flashbacks involving an apparently abandoned relationship between Affleck and Beecham’s characters, but essentially three astronauts are traveling one of Saturn’s moons known as Titan to collect some badly needed natural resources to ship back to Earth. Because of the distance, the spacefaring trio have to spend several long stints in hibernated sleep, waking every three months for some routine maintenance and reestablishing contact with Mission Control. John starts to lose his grip on reality when he starts hearing whispers and having visions of his lost love, Zoe. One of the other two astronauts seems to be really losing his marbles, however as the story unfolds, it is quite a chore to determine the difference between reality and fantasy.
The film does have a couple of accomplishments. The cast is talented enough, and there are some effectively suspenseful moments. It does take a while for the action to rev up. Affleck’s character is somewhat dull at first, but he starts to get a little more compelling the more the audience finds out about him.
Fishburne seems too seasoned at this point to really screw up a role, so he is reliably helpful in a film even if the writing is a little dodgy.
I don’t like to give away too many spoilers, so I want to be a little careful here. The main problem is that the actual mission planning makes no sense. This didn’t occur to be until after I walked out of the theater, but I realized that whoever concocted the actual strategy for this venture had to be an utter imbecile.
The visual effects and set designs were fine, but that hardly matters if the story comes across as too ludicrous. The film looks pretty cool and interesting in some ways, but that ended up being as much of an illusion as poor John’s grip on sanity.
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