Contrary to other reviews here, I would say that this film is vastly over rated given its current IMDb score.
When I read the IMDb description, I could imagine so many interesting ways such a plot concept could unfold, and I was excited to watch this film. But the plot adoption is very, very thin and just straight out disappointing. A good amount of time is spend on the characters, but it never gets to any kind of depth or reveals any kind of relation to the plot at all. There seems to be little point in showing us most things they do actually. I am not even sure if there is a point anywhere in this film at all.
It is very obvious that the film tries to mimic the tranquil space/tech scenes of 2001 that came out just months before it, but it completely misses the point of how and why those scenes are used. In Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, mundane and completely irrelevant scenes are dragged out to the point where concentration and interest vanishes completely. Half way through the film, I was very close to switching it off or go watch something else due to boredom. Even a lot of the effects are quite obviously copied from 2001, but also very poorly so. Even if you skip the obvious 2001 comparison, the effects are still rather unimpressive even for their time. There are films from the 50s with more convincing miniature model scenes for instance. The soundtrack is nothing worth writing about either.
If I had watched it as a child, I could probably have ignored its many short comings and liked it due to the sci-fi setting of the film. As an adult I find it hard to recommend it though. There are some interesting props and beautiful 60s fashion, but that is about the only good thing I have to say besides the awesome plot idea (that is very poorly executed).
When I read the IMDb description, I could imagine so many interesting ways such a plot concept could unfold, and I was excited to watch this film. But the plot adoption is very, very thin and just straight out disappointing. A good amount of time is spend on the characters, but it never gets to any kind of depth or reveals any kind of relation to the plot at all. There seems to be little point in showing us most things they do actually. I am not even sure if there is a point anywhere in this film at all.
It is very obvious that the film tries to mimic the tranquil space/tech scenes of 2001 that came out just months before it, but it completely misses the point of how and why those scenes are used. In Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, mundane and completely irrelevant scenes are dragged out to the point where concentration and interest vanishes completely. Half way through the film, I was very close to switching it off or go watch something else due to boredom. Even a lot of the effects are quite obviously copied from 2001, but also very poorly so. Even if you skip the obvious 2001 comparison, the effects are still rather unimpressive even for their time. There are films from the 50s with more convincing miniature model scenes for instance. The soundtrack is nothing worth writing about either.
If I had watched it as a child, I could probably have ignored its many short comings and liked it due to the sci-fi setting of the film. As an adult I find it hard to recommend it though. There are some interesting props and beautiful 60s fashion, but that is about the only good thing I have to say besides the awesome plot idea (that is very poorly executed).