The Astronaut's Wife (Film Review)

1999 New Line Cinema
Written and Directed by: Rand Ravich
Starring: Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Joe Morton, and Clea DuVall
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 109 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 3/10

When Jillian isn't teaching her second grade class, she's standing at a window, pining up at the Florida sky, wishing her husband, Spencer, would come home safely from space. Unfortunately, the worst happens, and Spencer is involved in an incident while on a spacewalk, outside the space shuttle. Spencer loses consciousness, is gathered back into the shuttle, and taken home. Thankfully, back on Earth, he seems to have recovered. Unfortunately, he seems a bit off. First, he decides to quit his NASA job, giving up his piloting dreams for a private sector job...in New York City. Second...well, he just seems weird. Jillian begins to think perhaps something nefarious happened in those two minutes...and the man whose twins she's now carrying isn't even her husband...or human...and maybe the twins in her womb aren't either!
The Astronaut's Wife has promise. It features a slow burn build in its first half that isn't great, but still scratches my conspiracy thriller itch. As the lead couple, Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron are solid. And then, halfway in, the central conspiracy is revealed...and it lands with a dull, quiet whimper. The entire film hinges on that conspiracy having weight enough to carry it, and the reveal is just a complete and total dud, one of the most shrugs of a twist ever committed to film. Worse, everything that happens after that revelation is even more dull and eye-rolling than the twist. 
The Astronaut's Wife's release date at the end of the 20th Century put it in prime position. The kind of paranoia it is attempting to invoke couldn't have synced more perfectly with the end of the millennium and the dread around Y2K. What a wasted opportunity, and a disappointment of a film.