Great first act, miserable second act and goofy third act

SPOILERS


The premise established by this movie up to and including the scene where Hal Holbrook lays out the reasons why the mission has to be faked and the suspicious technician reporting errors with his console builds up the tension. Then comes the second act that drags on and on, people talk and talk and talk but nothing really happens and all the tension created in the first act fizzles out. Not even an out of control car with no brakes scene fixes it. Then the third act where astronauts perform one of the most laughably easy escapes from a government facility ever portrayed on film and later one of them miraculously pins himself to a World War I biplane which outduels two modern-day army helicopters. What the what?

If there's a remake of this movie, the pace has to be a lot brisker. I'd recommend that the story be changed so that astronauts decide they have to pull the plug on the hoax as soon as they get the chance to be on TV when NASA has been telling everyone they're on their way to Mars. They have concluded that going public as early as possible means government officials will leave their families alone. It works but the Hal Holbrook character gets away scot-free. That ends the first half of the movie. Then the second half of the movie is set months later after the global scandal they caused has quieted down, suspicious events start occurring to their families, the astronauts regroup to defend themselves and those who are left in their families, and they expose Hal Holbrook really did mastermind it along with others in even higher places in the government.