High hopes fell short

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2015)

I expected a great deal from this movie, but it came up short. Maybe my expectations were too high. For one, the plot is a bit preposterous. Some mysterious someone out there sends us a helping hand by creating...uh...creating a wormhole so far from Earth that it takes years to get there? That's like throwing a life raft to a drowning person....three miles from where they are located...and then expecting them to find it and swim to it. And if this race is so advanced they can create worm holes, and are so interested in helping us, why not come through it themselves and help us on our end? And then they go through the worm hole and find the closest, and what appears at first to be the most promising planet is orbiting a black hole? Really? Did anyone in this SCIENCE fiction movie even read a science book? Let's ignore how a planet that close to a black hole managed to retain water and an atmosphere after going through the super nova that created it. Let's assume it did. But a planet orbiting close enough to a black hole to experience the time dilation effects they are talking about would have three major problems. One, the black hole, any black hole, emits vast amounts of high energy radiation. Xrays for one. This generated by the synchrotron radiation of dust and gas being sucked into the hold. In other worlds, radiation levels would be unsurvivable, even for very brief times. Two, tidal forces on the planet would be phenomenal. The planet would be in a constant state of seismic upheaval. In fact, it's doubtful that it could even remain intact. Three, said tidal forces, amongst other things, would quickly degrade the planet's orbit, causing it to spiral in and get eaten by the black hole....as all things do that get too close to one. Now I'm not one that gets upset over little inaccuracies like space ships that go "wooosh" in space. But I do expect at least a small touch of reality. It has to be somewhat believable.