Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Capricorn One Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 1, 2015

Though I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, my very own dear departed maternal grandmother was one of those people who resolutely refused to believe we had actually landed on the moon. Now Grandma wasn’t a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, she was simply a fairly intelligent but relatively uneducated (or perhaps undereducated) woman who had witnessed all sorts of technological miracles during her lifetime but still for whatever reason wasn’t able to quite wrap her mind around Man having the wherewithal to shoot three men first into outer space and then, later, two of them onto the lunar surface. My grandmother never really revealed how she thought the footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin frolicking in lesser gravity was created, though the obvious implication was that it was all staged. And so for a certain segment of the population the rather outlandish premise of 1978’s Capricorn One probably played less like a thriller than a dramatized documentary. The target of the launch might be a tad more ambitious—Mars instead of the moon—but otherwise Capricorn One plays solidly to those who are tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists, positing a shady and corrupt government out to bamboozle a gullible citizenry into believing that a manned mission to the red planet is actually taking place, when instead an elaborate hoax is being foisted upon everyone.

Capricorn One is one of those films that depends on an escalating series of improbable events, all of which are only possible due to a perplexing lack of logic and/or common sense. In this particular case, there actually is a planned mission to Mars which indeed is in its final stages of countdown, supposedly about to launch Lt. Col. Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), Col. Charles Brubaker (James Brolin) and Commander John Walker (O.J. Simpson) into space. When some malfeasance is uncovered, instead of simply scrubbing the mission, NASA bigwig James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) decides instead on subterfuge, supposedly fearing that the future of the space program will be jeopardized if the mission doesn’t go off as planned. This is a rather dubious contrivance, and one which tends to offer a relatively shaky foundation for all that soon follows, but perhaps surprisingly, given an adequate suspension of disbelief, Capricorn One manages to deliver a decently fun excursion into a paranoid fantasy of secretive governmental operatives and the (always) black hearts of men. It may not have the “allure” of assassination as in The Parallax View, a film which preceded Capricorn One by a few years but which traffics in much the same angst, but it manages to work up a fair amount of tension, perhaps all the more remarkable given its somewhat ludicrous premise.

The three putative astronauts are instead whisked away to a top secret location where they’re told under various threats to “go along to get along,” and to prepare to act out a “Mars landing” in front of a somewhat miraculously assembled battery of cameras in a television studio inside a hangar (NASA may have issues with subcontractors in this film, but their ability to create “must see tv” evidently isn’t a problem). Meanwhile, in a tip of the hat to another film dealing in political conspiracy, All the President's Men, it’s a crusading journalist, Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould), who starts chasing the truth after his version of Deep Throat spills the goods, or at least tries to before things go awry.

The middle section of Capricorn One tends to lose a bit of steam, as the astronauts are consigned to acting out their landing even as Caulfield attempts to figure out what’s really going on. However, writer and director Peter Hyams smartly ups the ante as the film works toward a rabble rousing final act, when yet another plot contrivance suggests that the astronauts’ “acting days” may soon be drawing to a close. While again completely ridiculous, the extended quasi-chase scene that finds the trio wandering through an intentionally ironic alien looking landscape works up considerable suspense.

While Capricorn One is a bit too overheated for its own good, and suffers from an increasing sense of incredulity, it’s also undeniably entertaining and, finally, rather exciting. Performances are generally excellent, with Waterston and Brolin managing to bring conviction to what are essentially one note characters. In fact, a lot of the color of the film comes from the distaff side, with Brenda Vaccaro and the criminally underrated Denise Nicholas standouts as significant others. Holbrook is typically oily in his affably suave way, and Gould manages to be engaging as the Everyman peeking beneath the nefarious doings of an ultimately murderous scheme.

Perhaps surprisingly, Hyams, who built his career on more overt action adventure (if often science fiction tinged) fare like Outland, 2010: The Year We Make Contact and Timecop, tends to indulge in more of a quasi-intellectual gambit here, playing on fears that the Powers the Be aren’t always acting with the best of intentions, making Capricorn One a somewhat exotically placed entry in the post-Watergate slew of paranoid thrillers. NASA’s own website has a whole subsection devoted to our continuing exploration of the red planet. Capricorn One "believers" might of course tend to argue the many pictures on the site are just some Photoshopped fever dream of a corporate bureaucrat trying to stay employed. Luckily my grandmother isn’t still around to offer her two cents’ worth.

Capricorn One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Capricorn One is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Timeless Media Group, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is at best a modest offering, and at worst a fairly lackluster one, though one that at least has not been put through a digital wringer. The general look here is decidedly on the soft side, with even close-ups failing to really deliver superior levels of detail and fine detail. Midrange and wide shots are even less convincing at times. On the plus side, colors are quite nicely saturated and appear to have undergone little if any fade. Elements are also in generally fine condition, with only expected anomalies like flecks and specks of dirt showing up. Grain is occasionally problematic, tending to clump and again at times having an ugly yellow component, a tendency that also afflicts Shout!'s release of On Golden Pond, though not to this degree. For these reasons, some may feel a 3.0 score is overly generous, though to be fair the presentation looks better in motion than some of these screenshots might suggest. That said, despite the deficiencies on display and room for improvement, Capricorn One at least offers a generally organic look if not outstanding levels of depth, clarity and sharpness.

Capricorn One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Capricorn One features a surprisingly robust lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, one which more than capably handles the film's dialogue, effects and Jerry Goldsmith's enjoyable score. There's a perhaps unexpected energy to the low end and the midrange is also nicely full, offering good support for some of Goldsmith's more punchy cues. There are no issues of any kind to report.

Capricorn One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:06)


• Photo Gallery (1080i; 5:26)

Capricorn One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some who are old enough to remember the excitement of watching hero astronauts blast off either into orbit or even more incredibly to the moon are also of the same generation who watched in horror as the Watergate conspiracy and its aftermath showed just how devious various governmental types could be. Those two disparate elements are combined somewhat precariously in Capricorn One, but for those willing to put a certain amount of logic aside, the film delivers a decent amount of paranoid dread. Video quality here is acceptable though lackluster, so fans of the film will probably want to peruse the screenshots included with this review to help them make any decisions about purchasing.