The situation leaves three very live astronauts running from government troops, in an effort to stay alive and expose the conspiracy. Elliott Gould is hotshot reporter who smells a rat and soon finds his own life in jeopardy. Hal Holbrook is the NASA director who conceives the idea of staging the trip to Mars for the television cameras, but then decides his own people are expendable for the greater good of the space program. Director Peter Hyams stages a number of exciting action sequences that intensify one's enjoyment of the film. The transfer is sharp and features very good detail.
Colors are natural and have well saturated hues.
Digital compression artifacts were seldom noticeable. The soundtrack has been re-mixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 with very pleasing results. The track makes use of the discrete channel capabilities of the format to offer good separation and directional effects. Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score also benefits from the Dolby Digital encoding. Other soundtrack options include a Dolby Surround compatible track.