a movie with a great premise, unfortunately falls under the weight of it's own expectations. problems i had with this movie abound. why is none of the crew over 30??? one of the things that kept 'deep impact' out of the made for TV section was Robert duvals superb turn as a widowed astronaut. why do they jeopardize the whole of earth just to see what Icarus 1 is like? why couldn't an astrophysicist calculate shield angle correctly? why did they go over to Icarus 1 with no spacesuits? why don't they have any robots to do external work? how does the looney from Icarus 1 get aboard 2 undetected? why do they spend so much time in the observation lounge staring at the sun? how did the payload manage to get so far inside the sun without astronauts dying instantly from radiation poisoning or melting? it just got more and more ridiculous the longer the movie went on.
it seemed like earth was in the hands of a bunch of 30 something slackers who couldn't add up and were more interested in zoning out than doing a professional job. as long as you don't think too long or too hard it's not a bad way to spend 90 or so minutes, but that hardly elevates it over standard Hollywood fare. this movie is nothing like alien or 2001. it's a blot on Danny Boyle's copybook.