Common Sense Media Review
By Jeffrey M. Anderson , based on child development research. How do we rate?
age 15+
Violence, language in clever, brutal deep-space chiller.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
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Violence & Scariness
a lot
Gun is drawn; gun used to threaten and beat someone, with struggling, blood spatters, blood smears on window. Character slammed against wall. Fighting, choking, punching, pummeling. Bloody wounds. Character whacked on head and knocked unconscious by a falling panel. Hallucinations include a character getting sucked out into space, arm mutating, blowing up. Creepy/spooky stuff. Taunting. Dialogue about characters being shot and killed and/or frozen to death in an Antarctic outpost.
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Language
a lot
Occasional uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bulls--t," "Jesus Christ," "oh my God."
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Sex, Romance & Nudity
a little
Two characters begin to undress while kissing passionately; sex is implied.
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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
a little
Character with a flask shares shots of moonshine with crew members. A character casually holds a glass of wine.
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Diverse Representations
a little
Main character John (Casey Affleck) is a White man; his crew mates are Captain Franks (Black actor Laurence Fishburne) and Nash (Israeli actor Tomer Capone). John's love interest, Zoe (White actor Emily Beecham), who works in the space program, has agency (but is also definitely a supporting character). Some other smaller roles are played by women and actors of color.
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Positive Messages
very little
The movie is mainly about the flaws of human perception and how, no matter how vivid the things we see, hear, and feel seem, they might not actually be the truth.
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Positive Role Models
very little
The astronauts are partly viewed as heroic for going on such a long, dangerous mission for a purpose that might benefit Earth -- but in reality, they're confused, scared, and lost, just struggling to make it.
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Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Slingshot is a clever, brutal sci-fi thriller about a mission to Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Long periods of hyper-sleep cause the mission crew (Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone) to get disoriented, and reality becomes difficult to discern. Violence includes guns being used to threaten and beat people, blood spatters and smears, bloody wounds, a character getting slammed against a wall, fighting, choking, punching, pummeling, hallucinations (a mutating arm, etc.), creepy stuff, a character being hit with a falling panel, and more. Occasional language includes "f--k," "s--t," "bulls--t," "Jesus Christ," and "oh my God." Two characters kiss passionately and start to undress; sex is implied. One character shares shots of homemade moonshine from a flask, and there's other minor social drinking. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
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Slingshot
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What's the Story?
In SLINGSHOT, astronaut John (Casey Affleck) wakes up from hyper-sleep aboard the Odyssey-1. He's traveling through deep space, bound for Saturn's moon Titan, accompanied by Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne) and crew mate Nash (Tomer Capone). The drugs that are necessary for hyper-sleep seem to be causing some disorientation, and John keeps seeing and hearing the voice of Zoe (Emily Beecham), a woman he met just before his journey began. Then a panel on the ship mysteriously comes loose, although neither the diagnostics nor the video feed show anything amiss. Nevertheless, there's damage to the hull, and Nash starts to fear that the ship won't be able to withstand the slingshot maneuver around Jupiter that will allow them to complete their mission. He wants to turn around and head home and tries to get John on his side, while Captain Franks is determined to keep moving ahead. As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to discern what's real and what's in their heads.
Is It Any Good?
Our review:
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An unsettling, cleverly effective sci-fi movie that centers on just a few characters and a single, sterile location (not counting flashbacks to Earth), this chiller will have your brain buzzing. With Slingshot, Swedish-born director Mikael Håfström returns to the territory he explored in his best movie to date, 1408. That film also had just a couple of major characters and a single setting, and everything that happened was imagination, experience, and sensation; there was nothing tactile or dependable.
Things feel similar here. From the moment Slingshot begins, a computer voice tells John that the hyper-sleep drugs can cause "confusion, nausea, dizziness, and disorientation," and viewers can feel that in the slightly off-kilter way Håfström uses the space. And Affleck's sleepy performance lets us know that he's not quite connecting to everything around him. The more typical flashbacks to John and Zoe getting to know each other may seem like a distraction, but they're necessary to the movie's rhythm (they offer rest periods), as well as to its emotional construction. Just about every scene leaves off with at least two possibilities (was that real or not real?), and that tension increases as things move along. Slingshot is a tightly constructed gut-punch of a movie, sometimes ruthless but endlessly intriguing.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Slingshot's violence. How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?
How did you interpret the movie's ending? What do you think really happened on board the ship?
Do characters demonstrate courage? What would it take for someone to sign up for a space mission like this one?
Movie Details
- In theaters: August 30, 2024
- Cast: Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, Emily Beecham
- Director: Mikael Hafstrom
- Inclusion Information: Black actors, Female actors
- Studio: Bleecker Street
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Topics: Space and Aliens
- Run time: 109 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: language and some violence/bloody images
- Last updated: August 27, 2024
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Slingshot
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