The Astronaut’s Wife

The Astronaut’s Wife attempts to be a horror-thriller that never achieves liftoff. In fact, I can’t figure why they even bothered to stick this thing on the launching pad.

Two space shuttle astronauts are outside their orbiting spacecraft doing a repair job. NASA loses contact with them for two minutes.

Returning back to Earth, astronaut Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) is reunited with his wife, Jillian (Charlize Theron). He mysteriously leaves the program to take a job with a New York defense contractor. Jillian begins to notice Spencer’s increasingly strange behavior.

Meanwhile, the other astronaut (Nick Cassavetes) dies suddenly. His wife then commits suicide in a rather gruesome fashion.

Jillian is contacted by a former NASA official (Joe Morton). Ousted from the agency, he presents evidence to her that during the two minute period in space, both astronauts encountered an alien being which took up residency in their bodies. And, he adds to a now pregnant-with-twins Jillian, the other astronaut’s wife was also pregnant with twins at the time of her death.

We’ve already seen this premise 30 years ago in Rosemary’s Baby with Mia Farrow. My, how time flies and our memories all fade.

At this point, the film becomes a formulaic potboiler. Jillian wonders if Spencer is an alien, but of bigger concern are the twins she’s carrying.

Spencer doesn’t help things along. We get the sudden surprise appearances of him accompanied by a loud noise, or "jump scenes," presumably to wake you up from a sound sleep.

It’s the really outlandish ending, however, that will leave you shaking your head in dismay. That and hearing Johnny Depp with his awful Southern drawl.