Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

mpoconnor7 From the title, you might think The Astronaut was a sci-fi movie, but it wasn't. It was a very good made for TV movie which focused more on people than special effects, and dealt with the human cost of living a lie. The basic plot is that on the first manned mission to Mars, the first man to step on the Martian surface dies of poisoning due to mysterious gases in the Martian atmosphere that permeated his spacesuit. The head of the space program, fearing that this disaster could end the space program, covered it up and found a pilot who bore an uncanny resemblance to the deceased Astronaut and trained the lookalike to be the first man to step on Mars once the spacecraft returned to Earth. The deal was that after a period of time, the Astronaut would be killed in a pre-arranged boating accident with the body never found, giving the lookalike his life back.The Astronaut's wife soon figured out he was a fraud, but, over time, began to fall in love with the lookalike. She chose to join him on the boat so she also would be "killed" and have her identity changed to be with him. As they were getting ready to board the boat, they were informed that the Soviets had just announced that they had launched their mission to Mars. Knowing the same fate that befell the American Astronaut would also happen to the Soviet Astronauts, and the scam they pulled would be revealed, they decided not to board the boat, and instead decided to come clean. The Space Program Administrator, coming to the same conclusion, decided that he too had to come clean to the President and tell the truth about what happened on Mars.The acting was a notch above your run of the mill MFTVM, with Monte Markham playing the Astronaut and his doppleganger, Susan Clark as the Astronaut's wife, and Jackie Cooper as the Space Program head. The movie was predictable, but it was well done by TV standards.

gildaevf This is the movie that made me a fan of Monte Markham. He positively shines! And I love how the movie is more concerned with the human factor rather than the hardware. Special effects are well and good, but that's all a lot of newer movies have. I taped this a couple of years after its first airing, and have never tired of watching it!

BriarDan This was probably the first Susan Clark movie that I saw and I became a lifelong fan of hers. I saw it when I just a young kid. I have thought about it often and told friends what a good movie it was. I've always been more of plot fan of movies than of the actors in the movie. This movie was really good and the performance of Susan Clark and Monte Markham was well above average for a television movie. It's unfortunate that I entice my friends to see the movie and it's not available for viewing that I know of. Too bad Nick at Night doesn't show old television movies also.

melissab I've only seen this movie once, when it was originally broadcast, and I have never forgotten it. Recently I've been trying to find it on video, but have been unsuccessful. This is an excellent movie. Even if the premise is a little far-fetched, the movie is wonderful in the way it allows the emotions of the characters to unfold. I still hold out hope that one day this movie will show up on video.