Loved this movie, who hasn't thought of building a space ship in their backyard!! Billy Bob comes across as a pretty weird guy normally, so this role suits him perfectly.
I enjoyed it fell asleep at the end but only cause I was really tired so had to watch the ending the next day lol. It was a little slow in parts but neat. Enjoyed showing that he wasn't going to give up his dream no matter what!
"When I was a kid, they used to tell me that I could be anything I wanted to be, no matter what... and maybe I am insane, I don't know, but I still believe that."
Great film, inspiring. A family holding together, believing together and not giving up no matter what everyone else says and what goes wrong.
Although I like the message in this movie about following your dreams and all, I thought the whole idea was too far-fetched and unrealistic. First of all, a huge space fanatic and farmer spends his free time building a rocket ship in his barn that he one day dreams will fly him into space. Wait a minute, how is that possible? Spaceships take billions of dollars to build and launch, and the smallest problem could cause explosions and damage the earth and it's inhabitants. Plus, the spacesuit he uses is completely outdated. You couldn't possibly survive the harsh conditions of outer space without an updated model with ideal conditions. When the media and NASA try to stop him, they are shown as the "villains" of the story, but you can't just allow anyone to go off launching themselves into space. Millions of things could go wrong, like colliding with other spaceships, orbital debris, not having the proper equipment, ect. He's putting his family in danger just for the satifaction of being in space. Maybe I'm not being very sensitive, I don't know. I just think they could've done a better job with this movie.
With a painfully slow pace, a lead character (Billy Bob Thornton as Charlie Farmer, seriously that's his last name) who is firmly in the wrong, unbelievable plot progressions that go from contrived to just damn lazy and ho-hum performances, The Astronaut Farmer is a supposed feel good drama that brings a feeling of dread.
This is a very inspirational movie. I wasn't expecting anything from this movie and it turned out to be one of the few good ones. Makes you want to carry out your dreams no matter how disasterous the failure!
Heart felt, moving family film, Billy Bob captured this charcter. Ever since Monster ball I have look at Billy Bob differently. Make sure you watch the "Outtakes and Bloobers" on the DVD.
A little too slowing moving for me. Wasn't really interested in what was going on. That other rocket movie I saw was a lot better. And what's up with Billy Bob Thornton not even cussing once?!
I was somewhat disappointed. It seemed like the film was only partially completed. I kept having the sense that important scenes were not complete, or yet to be added.
The movie, I thought, was pretty mediocre. The main character wasn't all that likeable; he just seemed stupid and had irrational dreams. The movie was also pretty anticlimactic: at the end, the family decides to go out for pizza. On the plus side, though, the movie did have its funny parts.
A rather depressing movie. I didn't feel sympathetic towards the main character. He seems very selfish and irresponsible putting his dream ahead of his family as well as a bit crazy and there were some major plot points that are completely unrealistic such as how the rocket ended up getting funded or how he got out of trouble for the bank incident. Very disappointed in the film.
I think he was a terrible father to waste all of the family's money on that rocket. They almost lost their home! Also, I think it was a terribly unbelievable story.
I was thinking of what movie to put next on my "10 worst movies of all times", and honestly, I didn't expect this one to land there. This is one of the most stupid movies I have ever seen, I'm seriously concidering if these characters were more stupid than the ones in "The thing"!
***SPOILER WARNING***
So we have Mr Perfect Daddy of the year, mr Farmer... and he is a farmer! *rolls eyes* He is an ex-military space whatever, he was excused from the job, probably because NASA already realized what a maniac they were dealing with.
Anyway, Farmer has a perfect daddy dream, not the usual like making your family sucessful, living in a nice home, getting the dreamjob or going on a vacation around the world. His dream is to build his own little rocket, launch it into space - and that's it.
Unfortunately for mr perfect Daddy, >his< perfect daddy killed himself because he couldn't make his dream come true (whatever that was), because the mean goverment decided to stop him. So he put a gun against his head and shot himself, leaving his wife and kids. And perfect daddy tells his air-headed wife the bullet is still going and heading his way, but she dosen't get the hint.
Anyways, Mr perfect daddy has a perfect little family, a wife Aubrey, their son Shepherd (the name is a reference to farming stuff, but it's a nice name still) who is 15 and a set of twin girls who look 6, who has the worst name combination in the world: Stanley and Sunshine I thought they were joking when they called one of the girls "sunshine", I thought it was something instead of calling them "Darling". Yikes! I don't know what was worst though, Stanley or Sunshine. Terrrrible names. They could have named them Uniqueaella and Harry, wouldn't have made a difference!
The wife is an airhead and her purpose in life is saying "Yes hunny!" to anything that perfect daddy desires. Even though in reality she hates the rocket, she just brushes it off. He even looses his weddingring in the rocket, she throws a fit about it, but he dosen't even bother looking for it. Because he is perfect daddy!
The son has no friends and loves the idea of daddy going to space. He never says no and does as he is told. Perfect daddy has a perfect son - convenient.
The two girls excist to promote people to name their kids badly.
Also, the mommy has a daddy, so that will be grandpa, who only has one purpose in this movie: Telling perfect daddy what a perfect daddy he is.
Back to the story. Perfect Daddy has decided he IS going to space, so he puts all of the familys money towards building a rocket from scraps from a "rocket yard" with stuff that NASA obviously didn't need anymore, you know, like a full-working engine and parts to make a perfect rocket and capsule.
They family is 600.000 $ in debt, but the wife is oblivious to this because perfect daddy handles and spends all the money on his rocket to persue his dream. Who cares about sending the kids to collage when you can be in space for 2 days? One day, daddy's "mean" friend at the bank decides they aren't going to give him anymore cash (because you know, he is a risk for not paying back), so perfect daddy throws a tantrum and smashes a brick in to the window of the bank where his "mean" friend is working. The police is summoned and they both go to court to settle things.
The judge tells daddy to apologize to the bank and then everything is fine. I mean, he just broke a window, of course he dosen't need to pay for it since he owes the bank 600,000 $ already!! The judge decides that daddy should see a shrink, because he thinks he is nuts. Daddy character throws a tantrum there too and then walks away, so shrink let's it go. Good thing temper tantrums works when you are over 40!
Oh, and while he is in debt with 600,000$, what is the most important thing to buy for your family? A CAROUSEL!!! Where the ¤"#¤ did he get the money??? I'm starting to think this guy lays golden eggs or something, because honestly, neither mom or dad seems to WORK!
So let's talk about >where< he plans to build this rocket. They have a little house in the middle of nowhere and have a little wooden barn beside the house. Yes, he is going to build a rocket inside the barn, a barn that is, what, 200 meters away from the house?
At this point I was feeling extreme headache and nasious, but believe me, it gets a LOT worse.
Daddy needs permission from the evil government to launch the rocket, and you know, all the "meanies" in this movie was thinking the same thing I did: This guy is nuts, but him in restrains or shoot him! He gets newspress to promote his rocket launching and FBI shows up to inspect the rocket, because what he is doing is illegal and dangerous to others. But this movie has one theme: Perfect daddy has a dream, and you should do whatever you can to fulfill that dream!
The government has a meeting with perfect daddy to discuss the permission to launch the rocket. They ask him an important question, "How do we know you aren't building a missile?" His perfect daddy answer: "If I was building one, you wouldn't know about it." That right there and then would have made him locked up if I was judging this thing!
So they say no, but perfect daddy dosen't give a !#¤"!, so he takes his kids out of school to stay home for one month and work on this rocket - whaaaaaat? What could they possibly contribute? Especially the 6 year old girls! Mommy throws a fit, but gives into daddy's perfect charms and let's the kids stay out of school. *headdesk*
The government dosen't like that daddy dosen't stop, so they freeze the family's bank account. Now airhead wife realizes that the family is in big debt when her credit cards don't work at the store. For the first time, she gets really mad and screams and yells at perfect daddy for not telling her about the debt and that they will have no food. Well, perfect daddy has one of his temper tantrums and airhead mommy forgives him. I mean, he's just destroying their lifes to fulfill one stupid dream, not so bad, eh?
Anyway, one day perfect daddy just randomly decides to go up into space, so he starts the rocket and, whoops, two things. 1: The blast makes all the windows of the house shatter and his wife was standing right next to them. She could have been killed! 2: The rocket fails to launch, and seconds whoops, it tilts. Now the weird and most stupid thing of the movie happens. For some WEIRD reason the rocker dosen't blow up, instead it shoots the capsule perfect daddy is sitting in and it shoots out of the rocket in like 500 mph... heading straight for a fair filled with people! But magically, not only do they see this capsule in time, EVERYBODY jumps out of sight in perfect time so that nobody gets burned or hurt, though magically you see the whole fair destroyed. Come on!
Perfect daddy crashes several miles away, but it takes airhead wife just 5 minutes to drive there just in time to take her #"¤#"¤head husband to hospital. I was actually kind of hoping for him to die, I mean, he could have killed both his family and a lot of innocent people! Come on, if that rocket had tilted the wrong way, the capsule would have shoot straight through the house!
At the hospital things look good, he has... "Severe headtrauma, 6 broken ribs, mulitble facial lacerations" and the rest I don't remember, because I was just enjoying the fact that the idiot was seriously hurt. When airhead wife asks how serious, the doctor says "You should be glad he is still alive".
While wife and kids bawl their eyes out, I'm sitting in a cozy armchair grinning from one ear to the other, finally the idiot is going down - what a great ending!
But nooo, not only does he fully recover - despite of "severe" headtrauma - within a week he is up walking with only need of one crutch. So he is back to - rebuilding his rocket!!! *headdesk* But boohoo, they don't have enough money, so they can't - HAHA.
Then randomly grandpa just dies - he just falls asleep on the coach and never wakes up again. Come on, the guy wasn't even coughing - how could he just fall asleep and die? Ruptured artery in the brain?!
Conviniently, grandpa leaves an insane amount of cash behind - enough money to both cover the bank-debts AND for airhead wife to give her husband money enough to buy a new rocket!!! What, was he just sitting on millions of dollars and didn't even bother to help them with the debt??? I also love how the wife shows perfect daddy the cash, she has put millions of dollars in - a paper bag!
So daddy is back to persue his dream, so he rebuilds the rocket within a couple of days (if he magically builds the rocket so fast, why did it take him so long the first time??) Oh, and he does this aaaaalll by himself and the help of his family.
And when the rocket launches, the only person who is the techincian is... *drumroll*.... the 15 year old son! And of course perfect daddy goes to space, finds his wedding ring and then come back to earth perfectly safe and the movie ends before they realize they've got no money left because they spent it all on the stupid rocket!!
Happy ending, but focuses on the FAA being gay and trying to get in his way for half of the damn movie. The other half deals with other obvious issues if this would ever become true.
Enjoyable movie. The story pushes the value of following your dreams. Though, I admit, I nearly lost interest when I thought the payoff of spaceflight was lost. Unexpected moments and geniune characters also made this watchable.
A Movie Without More Special Effects, But This Is A Really Innovative Movie!
This Is a Story About Family, Love, Dream, Power Of Human And At Last Astronavigation!
I missed the 1st 30min of the movie but what I did see was pretty good. It was a little slow but there were a couple of parts that got a little chuckle out of me. It was a decent movie. I wouldn't pay to see it in a theater.
The whole story and the moral of the story are complete crap. I thought this would be a good movie but half way through I thought about peeling a toenail off from boredom. I was already half way through so I have to see the end. All in all it's too unbelievable and people like the character Virginia Madsen played don't exist. I hope my wife lets me build a wrestling ring in the backyard and piledrive the neighbors because that's my dream! I'd rather be raped in the ass than watch it straight through again. Just a bad movie.
MCT:October 7, 2008
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