Nothing is surprising from the trailer due to the trend of beating us to death with everything contained in the movie. As well as the pretty standard formula for the plot.
I am a avid fan of any kind of space movie and Space cowboys seemed to be an exception to the summer norm especially since there is a big star cast. It was a pleasant exception but the plot followed the same summer formula.
Overall the movie was really entertaining and really humorous in parts, somewhat of a break of the tasteless humor that getting a little old. I would have to admit this movie is worth seeing only due to the fact of the big star cast. The brisk humor of the old ones is a good fit. This really is a mixture of Grumpy old men, touch of Galaxy quest with some Armageddon. And tried the worthless attempt to add Apollo 13 into the mix but didn’t work out.
The upsides were the cast and direction as well as overall establishing the characters for the movie. I usually complain about slow beginnings to movies but I rather liked it in space cowboys. It gave you a feeling on the characters and what they were doing now. If everyone isn’t aware there really isn’t any space action until the last half of the movie, I knew this from seeing the trailer so I wasn’t disappointed about the limited action.
The cast is really self-explaintory, they are top quality actors in there own right that have been in the industry for quite some time now. Granted some of the acting seemed a bit forced in certain areas and Clint used his Dirty Harry character throughout the whole movie,
there were long pauses of him as he seemed he was trying to find the right wrinkle combo to give his mean expressions but It was great to see this cast together.They make this movie important enough to go see even if they forget to add dimension to all the characters
Clint’s direction was very well done, although some of his action shots were a little too quick but he captured everything about the mission and space scene with good detail.
The special effects were top notch and standard ILM stuff. The space scenes were very well done, the composite shots were very clean and done very well.
The downsides seemed to be many and long lasted for this summer, and there are a few things that don’t work well in this movie. Space cowboys doesn’t even come close to the dramatic experience or the level of importance that Apollo 13 does. To me the launch seemed rather simple with not to much detail but that’s expected. I was especially cringing after the recruitment of the old ones as there walking toward Nasa, they just had enough nerve to include the annoying and stupid Nsyc jiggle but guess that was for the kids
Other than the funny dialogue most of the movie follows the standard stuff we have heard before in other space adventures given nothing for surprise or amazement. And most of the personal conflicts involved in the story were rather lame and were funny to me because it just wasn’t serious enough to be believable.
In conclusion this movie with other space movies as well as the summer trend follow the standard formula that just gives you mind numbing entertainment. It doesn’t exceed anyone’s expections and doesn’t make you want to go see it again but then again it was better than most of the summer fluff. It’s worth going to see and I enjoyed the little light entertainment that it provided, not outstanding, but worth watching on the big screen