Capsule [DVD]

It is 1959 and astronaut Guy is making the first manned space flight in a British space capsule. His vehicle runs into trouble and Guy desperately tries to contact his Earth command centre to get help in getting the craft down safely. But as he moves around the globe he strikes up communications with representatives from other countries who have their own agendas.This is a 'what could have happened' film. With its roots based very loosely on early British forays into a space program, this film takes some liberties and decides that a British space launch called Hermes was actually made, and manned. This is a really interesting idea but unfortunately the whole production falls apart when you meet the astronaut. He is the most unlikely pilot you would ever meet and would have been totally unacceptable as a candidate for such a mission - cowering, crying and indecision are his only reactions to the problems thrown at him. Of course he is in a bad place, but he had three years to prepare for such issues. He actually has no idea how to problem solve and is totally at the mercy of the people he is talking to on the ground.On the positive side, the rest of the story holds together quite well and the ending brings all the pieces together in a sensible way.This could have been a great science fiction film but was spoiled by the choices made by the filmmakers for the personality of the lead character.

The whole film is about a UK astronaut panicking in a faulty early developed space capsule. They should have sent up Roland Falk. He would have done away with the space suit and used his famous pin stripe suit, and worked out a perfect landing trajectory of the faulty space craft by the seat of his pants.

The Russian Voskhod (Восхо́д) capsule was inferior to the British Vauxhall 1 in almost every regard. The flip-out blinkers on the Voskhod rarely worked, and the pilots suffered very badly from only 15% Melton Mowbray Pork Pies making re-entry very tricky. Nevertheless, the Russians managed to orbit and return the first Beetroot in Aug 1959, effectively removing the UK from the Space Race forever.

The year is 1959. It is the height of the Cold War. An experienced fighter pilot finds himself in command of Britain's first manned mission to space, when his capsule malfunctions and he begins suffering from hypoxia. With limited radio contact to the UK, some unusual messages from the US, and unorthodox communication with Soviet Russia, he must fight to survive and make it back home to Earth. A good story but a little long winded and slow for me so 3 stars

Claustrophobic, low budget and sparse. I found some of the dialogue quite riveting and clever, but this won't be everybodys cup of tea, as witnessed by the varying reviews. For me, i was interested in keeping watching, so in that respect it ticked a few boxes. One for the anoraks.

Great script, amazing acting by the principal actor and plot twists too!All on a home movie budget, most likely and a lesson for all those who are working on budgets 10 or 100 times bigger and likely making films 10x worse.

I would have been delighted to give this a five-star review. However, the lack of any background to all of this is a serious drawback. It's obviously been filmed on a very low budget, and the acting of the British astronaut is too much 21st-century, not 1950s Britain

ok astronauts do not speak like that let alone a fight pilot, he sounds like he lost his mates at theme park...just too casual, from the moment he wakes up, he see the oxygen meter failing, finally gets radio contact back up...does he immediately, give a situation report, No, does he sounds like he does not really give a crap that he`s running out of oxygen... nor does he stress this to ground..... it has nothing to do with the fact he it British i`am British my self....this is very poor researched and executed film, it completely fails to draw you in... i`am not an impatient person but it really is just that bad and i`ve seen plenty lol budget films that were better than this....sorry guy in mums basement pretending to be a astronaut do you flipping research, an 18 year old PC gamer could of done a much better job