slingshot

The collapsed time frame has also allowed Harris to slingshot, as Schwarzenegger did, from one big campaign event to the next, with scarcely a lag in between.

In “Slingshot,” a space-travel thriller directed by Mikael Håfström, the title refers to a risky flight maneuver involving orbital mechanics.

Astronauts journeying a billion and a half miles to one of Saturn’s moons, Titan, will need a whip-around gravity assist — the “slingshot” in question — from Jupiter’s orbital velocity in order to make it all the way.

The film isn’t about the slingshot or the methane gas — or even climate change — but about the challenges of the journey itself.

Despite this central tension, “Slingshot” is an undeniably sleepy film, in which a groggy Affleck stumbles around a spaceship for most of the running time.