A good move...

It cracks me up reading some of the criticisms of the scientific inaccuracies of this movie in the reviews over at IMDB. Everyone's an unemployed astrophysicist it seems.

If the science in this movie bothers you in its inaccuracies, you probably want to skip any sci-fi made since, well, ever.

Tonally, it's very similar to Deep Impact. A human drama set against a pseudo-science backdrop. There are brief bits of action, but its more about the characters' journeys.

You really have to judge it on those merits, not on its scientific accuracy.

I enjoyed it.

Some people complain about the unresolved ending... what happened to these characters after the fade to credits?

If that's your concern, you definitely don't want to watch On the Beach because Clooney uses the same template. Some characters stoically remain to die in place, some characters leave to try to find their (likely dead) loved ones far away...

The only part that bothered me was the resolution about Earth's last remaining couple returning to K23 -- or whatever it was called. Their lot is going to be equally miserable. Two people is not enough to restart a human race. There will come a day when one of them will die, leaving the other one terribly alone.

But the movie abruptly ends here with them punching buttons on consoles with business-like efficiency. No reflection at all on their future. Credits roll on top. It looked more like the ending of a typical Star Trek ep.

If I were Clooney, I would have ended with a shot of their spacecraft receding into the void... similar to the ending of Silent Running... to reinforce the notion that they too will eventually die alone and lonely. (On the Beach features a similar scene of the submarine leaving the harbour for eventual certain death, as Ava Gardner looks on with infinite sadness).