Well, maybe you have to be a bit of sci-fi fan, or maybe just enjoy the challenge - or maybe just even be in the right mood. For what ever reason, I enjoyed this movie a lot. It had some of the challenging thoughts of 2001 (a movie I appreciate but do not enjoy at all),while at the same time trying maybe a tad to much to be like The Martian at times. But it worked. It left me thinking how much we really do not know. How fragile we just might be in space travels, while at the same time the stubbornness and geniality of our species might just see us through.

It might also have helped that Mark Strong is one of my favourite actors.

I was raised in the theatre, and this movie is perfect for the stage. I haven't checked it - but it just feels like a screenplay for theatre. There he would be speaking to the audience, but the thrill and the angst would translate so well.

What would I have done differently? I would have reduced the 2001 scenes, and the Matt Damon voice over a bit. I might have put a tiny bit more of reasons (or lack there of) of friendship and tension with the two other main characters.

Bottom line - this is not a 5 star movie! It is not a blockbuster, or big budget movie, but a very very well done set piece of a movie, that deserves at least 7 to 8 stars! See it, and let us know!

Sci-fi movies are highly entertaining and much of it is because they are NOT realistic. After all, in many of these films, folks just casually go from one planet to another and it seems to take minutes...or at most, hours. But the reality is that space travel, at least as we know it, is very, very slow and space is far, far bigger than we think. And, if films were that realistic they'd also be incredibly tedious...and that's much of the problem with "Approaching the Unknown". It's a film about a mission to Mars...and instead of doing the impossible and making it seem possible (such as in "The Martian"),it's more realistic...and, as a result, glacially slow.

When the story begins, Captain William Stanaforth (Mark Strong) is being sent on the first manned mission to Mars...and it's a one-way trip. Others will follow, but inexplicably he is the only crew member (this seems very odd not to have more crew members). Over the course of the trip, he slowly comes to realize two things...that his system for converting soil to water ISN'T working (which will make colonizing the planet impossible or at least very difficult) and he's also suffering from the effects of isolation. It culminates with him ultimately taking the ship off autopilot and setting out on his own.

Aside from some tiny portions of the movie, Mark Strong IS the entire film...and watching him and listening to him talk to himself becomes tedious. The music, while fitting, only made this sense of dullness more noticeable. I had serious trouble staying awake as I watched and think it's not the sort of film with widespread appeal. It's well made for what it is...but realism and believability are, in this case, not major plusses for the movie.

The film amounts to a one man monologue audio book. It is a character study of astronaut engineer William D. Stanaforth (Mark Strong) who has different ideas about life and seems to not like Earth. While the film is made to look scientifically credible, it is not, nor is it meant to be. It is about man and his relationship with the universe, atoms, and life as seen through the eyes of one man, who I thought was a bit messed up with his own ego and misguided determination. But hey, where would we be without guys like this? Safe and sound in our own homes? Of course if everything went well on the mission, your film would be boring...so they might just as well had everything go correctly. There was a message to the film, which I missed, most likely because my own ego and misguided determination wanted me to.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Note to self: If you got one guy in a script, give him personality.