ChicRawIdol
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Beystiman
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Ortiz
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
bullseyejack-880-914376
This movie about a crew of couples and children being sent to another planet in hopes of colonization is barely watchable. There is some science fiction that is so bad that it's funny. This is NOT one of those movies. Spaceflight IC-1 doesn't even qualify as watchable "schlock." The spaceship's (and I use the word 'spacechip' loosely) interior looks like a small, converted, second-rate office building. The characters' uniform insignia denotes their job aboard ship, but there's little mystery there, because of the little sewn tags on their uniforms, such as Captain, Doctor, Teacher, Engineer, etc. Thank you, Captain Obvious. The dialog was stilted, amateurish and generally badly delivered. The only redeeming feature was the dialog delivered at the funerals of two crew members - and that was from the Bible.
dodgercodger
I saw the title and brief description and thought this might be good. I could not have been more in error. Virtually nothing but talking heads, trying to be oh-so British while the non-existent plot labours forward. The alleged motivation for forming a new human colony on a distant planet fails to take into account that with a start-up population of four couples (along with three young boys and four unfortunates in suspended animation) there will be very little genetic variation in coming generations. There is a mutiny when the Captain (and we know this because he has his job title emblazoned on his chest, along with everyone else on the crew) forbids the other couples from "adding to their population". The aforementioned boys seem to be acting more like kids at a sleep-away camp than interplanetary explorers (even though they do have some kind of ESP powers). Their acting skills rank someplace south of a dead mouse. In the end, the Captain gets it by a berserk re-animate and our poor fish-bowl-headed cyborg just stands and rolls his eyes. 93 minutes that would have been better spent getting a tooth extracted.
frankfob
Low-rent at every conceivable level, this overheated British space opera has a turgid script, laughable "special effects", ham acting--except by lead Bill Williams, a reliable American character actor who usually plays a good guy but here does a good turn as the ship's tyrannical captain--flat and dull photography and isn't worth spending your time on. The story of a crew being sent on a 25-year journey to a habitable planet because Earth is on its last legs had possibilities, but hack director Bernard Knowles shoots everything in the most boring, unimaginative ways possible, without anything even remotely resembling thought, flair, or any kind of style whatsoever. Even low-budget veterans like Edward L. Cahn or Sam Newfield would have given some pizazz to this suffocatingly dull, plodding cheapo. Don't bother with it.
MartinHafer
The actual basic story idea of SPACEFLIGHT IC:1 is pretty interesting. However, considering how boring and badly the film was made, I assume that they must have hired chimps to write the script--it was that bad and that boring. It's a shame, really, as the film addresses some interesting ideas about spaceflight--but they are dealt with in a completely ham-fisted and inept manner.The basic story idea is excellent. A group of space travelers are sent from Earth to a habitable planet that will take 25 years to reach. So, in the meantime, some of the crew members are in suspended animation, one has been turned into a robot (?) and the rest need to get along and accept that it's going to be a very, very long ride! Seeing them with children and planning on creating more during the long voyage is an interesting concept as is the notion that tempers might flare given there are only a few couples aboard. What if a couple wants to split up? What if the captain is a bit too authoritarian and regimented? What if some of the crew members are total morons? All these questions are more or less answered, but don't expect any of it to make sense.The biggest problem is that the film finds them one year into their journey and already they are facing a mutiny. Didn't they bother to check out these people to see if the captain was a fascist or if the crew were all stupid malcontents?! And, didn't anyone question why the space agency turned one of the people into a robot with a human head stuck inside a goldfish bowl? The morality and pointlessness of this plot point is something to consider! And, given that several more people are being held in suspended animation, didn't anyone think to make sure the process worked before attempting a space flight with passengers in suspension? And, naturally, the process actually turns the people into killing zombies (don't you just hate when that happens?). Of course, the biggest unanswered question is why didn't anyone consider that the actors were all wooden and the script made little sense beyond the initial story idea! Poorly made and dull despite an intriguing premise--this is just too dull to recommend--even to lovers of early spaceflight movies.