Casey Affleck, David Morrissey, drama, Laurence Fishburne, Mikael Hafstrom, movies, reviews, sci-fi, science fiction, Slingshot, Tomer Capone
September 17, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Mikael Håfström
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in outer space, the sci-fi drama film “Slingshot” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) who are connected in some way to a space mission.
Culture Clash: A captain and two other astronauts have disagreements with each other during a claustrophobic and disorienting mission to find methane in outer space.
Culture Audience: “Slingshot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a dull outer-space movie that is poorly conceived.
The sci-fi drama “Slingshot” starts off with a flimsy concept (a claustrophobic outer-space mission seeking methane to save Earth) and flounders in the middle of the movie. The story’s divisive ending seems like a rushed and lazy cop-out among plot twists. There are any number of ways that “Slingshot” could have ended. The ending that was chosen for this disappointing dud of a movie comes across as the cinematic equivalent of throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks. It still leaves an unpleasant mess.
Directed by Mikael Håfström and written by R. Scott Adams and Nathan C. Parker, “Slingshot” takes place almost entirely on a spaceship that’s floating in outer space. (The movie was actually filmed in Hungary.) “Slingshot” also has a very small number of people in the cast. Three astronauts on the ship get most of the focus, while the lover of one of the space travelers is mostly seen in flashback memories. Everyone else who’s in the movie either has a short amount of screen time to speak and/or is a background extra.
“Slingshot” begins on December 23 in an unnamed year. On the spacecraft Odyssey 1, three astronauts are tasked with a mission called Titan, to find an overabundance of methane that could save Earth. (No reason is given for this nonsensical plot that methane can save Earth.) The Slingshot in the movie refers to a breathtaking display of orbital mechanics.
The movie is shown from the perspective of an American astronaut named John (played by Casey Affleck), who is on the spacecraft with a stern leader named Captain Franks (played by Laurence Fishburne) and a rebellious French astronaut named Nash (played by Tomer Capone), who all occasionally check in by satellite with their supervisor Sam Napier (played by David Morrissey), who has a British accent. The movie’s story has a non-linear timeline which reveals that John has been going through hibernation training to prepare for the mission. The beginning of the movie shows him emerging from a hibernation session, where he is told that the side effects can include confusion, nausea and dizziness.
Most of “Slingshot” consists of John on the spacecraft (1) getting into conflicts with Captain Franks or Nash and (2) having flashbacks to his romantic relationship with Zoe Morgan (played by Emily Beecham), one of the Odyssey’s designers. The movie intends to make the time as disorienting to viewers as it is to John, but it’s really all just muddled screenwriting.
After a while, everything drags with repetition until the last 20 minute of the film crams in several plot twists that have some plot holes. None of the acting is particularly special; the visual effects are competently basic. “Slingshot” doesn’t have much to say about what created the situation where Earth is desperate for methane. The movie is called “Slingshot,” but it ends up missing the mark in too many ways.
Bleecker Street released “Slingshot” in U.S. cinemas on August 30, 2024.