Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun (2008)

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun had the misfortune to be released when Stanley Kubrick's masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey was still fresh in audiences’ memories. Additionally, the sophisticated satire Planet of the Apes had also raised the bar for space movies. With those two films alone, the science fiction genre had taken giant leaps forward.

This 1969 adventure is written by Gerry Anderson (head string-puller behind Thunderbirds). Set one hundred years into the future, a team of international scientists discovers a mysterious duplicate of Earth orbiting on the other side of the sun. The rather grandly titled Journey sees two astronauts sent to uncover the secrets of this "duplicate" Earth. Roy Thinnes stars as hotshot American astronaut Glenn Ross, who is assigned by Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark) to accompany British astro scientist John Kane (Ian Hendry) on a mission to explore the newly discovered planet.

Halfway through their perilous voyage they suddenly crash-land, only to discover that the strange creatures surrounding them are human. Against a miasmic background of 1960s psychedelic rationality and defying all explanations they're back on Earth. Back on what we believe is terra firma; Ross discovers that everything at home is a mirror image of his existence. Though it begins as a paranoid spy thriller featuring some contemporaneous governmental espionage, it quickly turns into a serious and oddly unsettling space-race drama with a heady twist.

Release Date: 8 September 2008
Director: Robert Parrish
Starring: Roy Thinnes, Ian Hendry, Patrick Wymark, Lynn Loring and Herbert Lom
Certificate: PG
Language: English
Running time: 98 minutes (approx.)
RRP: £9.99

Adrian McBreen