It is, in fact, quite a proficient example of the science fiction genre, though I can't help thinking that 130 minutes is too long for anything non-Kubrick.

| Jun 2, 2020

A real spellbinder.

| Jun 2, 2020

It all goes a bit sci-fi bonkers towards the end, with a high-tension countdown and green lasers blasting scientists who attempt to override a doomsday button. But, well, it is a movie after all. And an underrated classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2020

the story is a fiction, but a fiction told with one eye on a realistic style of filmmaking (let's call it 'pathogen procedural'), and the other eye on the contemporary realities of both space travel and the Cold War...

| Jun 4, 2019

Despite its trappings, the plot employs nothing but the conventional weaponry of the grade-B thriller.

| Feb 8, 2018

Robert Wise brings his Academy Award-winning sobriety and meticulousness to a pulp tale that cries out for the slapdash vigor of a Roger Corman.

| Nov 5, 2008

Nelson Gidding's adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel is too literal and talky.

| Nov 5, 2008

Wise (and Crichton) concoct the most absorbing, riveting take on science fiction tempered with science fact.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 5, 2008

Wise does rather plod through the plot.

| Feb 9, 2006

Nothing very exciting goes on.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 9, 2005

Splendid entertainment that will get you worried about whether they'll be able to contain that strange blob of alien green crystal.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2004