source: Capsule

What a waste of time, good performance wasted from the principle actor. Sad propaganda rewrite of history, there is so much history to tell that it is sad that anyone would resort to a purely fictional story. Uncountable people died in the race for space, people of all nations from slave laborers, rocket attack casualties, technicians, designers. Could have been a promising film career start but turned into a sad political statement. The director maintained a good pace to the film. As a single handed performance it is very smooth and easy to watch which is a tough task for any Director or Actor. A great effort defeated by a mean political spirit. Go hang your head in shame

this movie will give you mixed emotions. the actor is good, he acts as he's told to act. not his fault that he is told to play an idiot. can you believe that a man is trained 5 (yes, five) years to ride a tiny space ship, with not as many electronics, switches, gadgets and screens as in today's space crafts, and yet has no idea how to replace a fuse, or that is not a spare fuse in a craft where there are only 4 fuses?! a well trained astronaut that for years was a fighter pilot in experimental American spy planes and panics from every sound on his transmitter? music is not bad, adds to the plot. 5 minutes of excellent photography near the end of the film. they account for 3 of my 4 points. worth watching if you are ready to be disappointed and not - at the same time.

Utterly idiotic and boring. Set in 1959, the film uses a Blair Witch premise of "found information" that follows a whining, whimpering, and apparently completely untrained and ignorant British test pilot sent into orbit in a secret British space mission to be the first man in space. Over the radio, Evil Russians convince him to kill himself. I'm not kidding. The idiotic film doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to any scientific or historic reality. As a result you have reference to NASA and Houston control which didn't even exist then. To say nothing of the fact that, in 1959, the British had no vehicle capable of orbiting a golf-ball, let alone a space capsule. (Theirs looks vaguely like a Mercury capsule painted white in the few scenes you sort of see it. ) The thing is an "Evil Russia" propaganda piece evidently produced by today's British intelligence MI6 for about $750. 99% of the movie is set in the cramped capsule until the ridiculous last 2 minutes, so in addition to being utterly stupid, it's completely boring. There's not a single redemption for this ridiculous movie. Not only should it not be seen, it should be destroyed. I would have given it less than a 1 rating, but IMDb has no 0. It makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Star Wars.

"I realize I'm stuck up here now. And missed my re-entry point... but my oxygen is down to 14 percent. What the hell am I supposed to do?" Looking for an action packed movie, full of thrills and spills? Such a film full of swirling action scenes or unprecedented conversations? Well just skip this movie then. The film is limited to an impressive solo performance, on board of a manned space capsule launched by the United Kingdom. The spacecraft looks as if Bob the Builder has put together this absurdity. And this indicates that this launch took place long before high-tech space shuttles occupied space. And not only the spacecraft looks primitive, but also Guy Taylor's spacesuit (Edmund Kingsley. Yep son of!) looks as if it's pieced together by the local carnival association. No wonder the amateurish structure starts to show some flaws, which leads to Guy finding himself in a hopeless situation with his capsule out of control and a lack of oxygen causing devastating effects. Respect to the creators of this low-budget film. It's a considerably low budget, as I could notice during the movie. Except for the opening image of the capsule in space and earth in the background. That looked promising. Unfortunately it's the only spectacular fragment used in the entire film. From then on it's limited to the few square meters available to Guy. And his interactions are also fairly limited. First there is the ghost of his lovely wife Charlotte. Then there's a certain Harry, from a space center in England, Guy has contact with. And finally he has radio contact with the Russian intelligence service, the CIA and NASA. Apparently the secret services of both superpowers follow this unknown manned space object. Probably they are impressed that a puny, small country such as the U.K., could achieve this. And at the same time they are full of suspicion since we are in the midst of the Cold War. Kingsley's acting was impressive at times. Then again, there was no one he had to compete with or someone he could surpass when it comes to acting. That was the easy part when you look at it that way. But it was still an admirable piece of work. He effortlessly went through a whole palette of emotional feelings. Panic, euphoria, determination and desperation seized him at the appropriate time. Besides a few stiff looking Russian soldiers, there was nobody else to be seen throughout the film. There were a few implausible moments as well. Especially Guy's clumsy behavior. He looked like a sort of hobbyist and space enthusiast, who applied for the job and indiscriminately pushes a few buttons and randomly replaces a fuse. All in all this was a fairly boring movie. Not only by the total lack of variety, but also because the outcome was quite disappointing. Granted, you can start fantasizing whether there is some truth to that legend about the success or failure of a manned space flight by England. Even if it sounds credible, with the serious-sounding text during the end credits, I don't believe it's based on true facts. I think this would have made public after the cold war, so the U.K. could take the credits for the first manned space-trip. As a short film this story would be more appropriate. The duration of the film was too long to fill it with this limited story. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

Nothing is logical in this movie. It starts off with a guy waking up in a little probe. I wont say anything more about it then the fact that this guy is a Astronaout sent to space by Britain and gets lost. One would assume some genius and some logic in how they take care of this right? Britain, Astronaout, Russians (helps out abit) but somehow the conversation in this movie is like 3 20 year old talking over the phone when one is lost and the other two is trying to describe the directions without a GPS present. You wouldn't guess its a Astronaout talking to the space center of one of the most sophisticated techonological countries of the time. He doesn't even know how to change two circuits and gets stressed over everything. Don't they get years of training on how to handle this stuff, stress and technological problems? They've tried out something like Gravity but failed miserably because even though the guy can act the storytelling is amazingly bad.

Fylingdales Station (the one with the giant golf balls) is located in Yorkshire and though it is nominally an RAF base it is operated in cooperation with America as part of an intelligence-sharing arrangement between the United States and the United Kingdom. If Hermes was being monitored from there the Yanks would have known all about it. American or British personnel, including astronauts and test pilots, involved in top secret programmes are heavily investigated and so are their families. Anyone hiding a thick Russian accent under a plummy English rose wouldn't last long. The Russians and Americans both launched a man into space in 1961. I would LOVE to think that the Brits beat them to it in 1959, but the idea is about as plausible as First Men In The Moon and Cavorite. Britain's only rocket launch base was Woomera in Australia, and nothing we ever had could reach orbit. Our most powerful rocket was Blue Steel and that was cancelled in 1965 at the behest of the Americans (who didn't want the UK to have an independent ICBM) in return for an IMF loan to bail out Harold Wilson's bankrupt government. I get the feeling that this was rushed out as a piece of tatty anti- Russian propaganda because of the situation in Syria. Ahhh... smells like the sixties all over again!

I had the opportunity to attend a screening of Capsule on Saturday night with my wife at the World of Film Festival in Glasgow. The event was hosted in an original vaudeville theatre which added to the unique experience We both agreed that Capsule delivers an intense experience and one we both enjoyed. The story is strong (no spoilers), the production superb and the performance by Ed Kingsley I found to be mesmerising. Kingsley's performance drew us into the story which played out across his face which dominates the screen. Definitely a film worth catching.

There are many things that I dislike about this text, and they all can be put down to the notion that this text is "based upon true events". I like my research; so I did some digging,only to find that no such pilot existed or was considered for the role of astronaut. Furthermore the Mariner class ship, is not accurate either. The ship used in a Mercury design, so the call sign throughout bothered me a lot. Also the story arc is so profoundly flawed, that it left a bitter taste in my mouth. what I think this film does well is in metaphor and through that the timing of its release. Here the capsule represents Britain, flying free from Europe. Essentially a tatty ship, with broken parts and perceived hostile forces all round with a terrified captain at the helm. This sums up our present situation in the UK perfectly. Therefore don't watch this text believing its external and frankly flawed story-line. Watch this text for the superb acting, by the son of one of England's best actor's.

Set in 1959 the British put the first man in space with a capsule called "Hermies", however the Russians trick the pilot into colliding with a US mercury capsule and landing Russia which kills the pilot, the mission is covered up. 99% of the film is just looking at the pilot sitting in the capsule, he does things like replace faulty electronics & closing valves to malfunctioning systems, its pretty boring. Can't really recommend this movie, the only good thing is the acting. Some facts: Britain had 2 space worthy rockets: the Blue Streak & the Black Arrow, these weren't developed until the late 60s early 70s, nor would they be able to lift a capsule as large as the one depicted in this movie. If your looking for a fictional "first man in space" movie try "Wings of Honneamise".