Space Cowboys (DVD) > Reviews > Space Junk

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Unmemorable

Advantages:	Good cast
Disadvantages:	Poor plot

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

When you think of Hollywood greats and some of the best films ever produced, no doubt a member of this cast is embedded somewhere in the film you are thinking of. Thats right. With a cast that includes Clint Eastwood, James Coburn, Donald Sutherland and Tommy Lee Jones, you would expect a brilliant story with a showstopper of a script.
Sadly, this fails to steak across the sky in bright lights unlike the object of their mission in this film.
Thats right. Its a space film. Made for the big screen but looking more at home on a "made for TV" film channel like Bravo or such like.

What is it about?
Well, I looked forward to this film as I love space and particularly manned space flight. Due to my interest, im normally the first to spot inconsistencies in the realism of these type of films.
However, I was impressed with the start of the film where 2 of our stars are taking part in speed of sound and altitiude tests as fighter pilots. However, the use of the monkey literally minutes after the announcement that NASA is formed made me laugh at its timeline!

**** HERE IS SOME PLOT DETAILS. DONT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO KNOW! ****
So the story follows the "would be" astronauts 35 years in the future. One of the astronauts (Clint Eastwood) has been on the payroll of NASA as a designer of a guidance system. However, it appears the new friendship of the Russian and American space agencies is in danger after a Russian "weather satellite" armed to the back teeth with Nuclear warheads is about to crash out of orbit. The guidance system on the satellite is broken and needs fixing and it appears it is a stolen design in the 1970's from the Americans! Who Designed it? Clint.... Who needs to go and fix it? Clint.......Who is he taking with him? His old buddies who never got to go up!

Special effects.
As with all of these space films, it seems hard to recreate zero gravity on earth. But as with "Apollo 13" before it, it gets away with this perfectly. A lot of the special effects concerning explosions and rockets, etc are obviously Computer generated and lack that "finished" touch. More home made than Hollywood made!

Music.
Totally lacking and would have been good to include some older tracks to go with the "space Cowboys". This would have given some atmosphere to the film and also provided some entertainment for my ears rather than listening to poor dialogue.

Humour.
Hmm...What humour? Considering it is classed as a commedy, I had trouble unearthing any jokes.
It does try which I feel is always a big mistake when making a space film. After all, space is a serious business and jokes are normally ill placed here. The one liners and constant digs are wasted on the audience who are expecting to see an action film. Trouble is, its hard to even generate action out of a bunch of 60+ cast members.

Cast.
Like I mentioned, there are many big name movie stars here and they must need some extra cash. Its the only reason I can think of why they appeared in this trash. Clint is not the best of actors unless he has a horse between his legs and James Coburn seem to have been playing the same role in all his films for 50 years. Nice to see Donald Sutherland making an appearance after all these years though. There are a few other members of cast that seem to be stuck in the "Space Film" stereotype. The guy running operations on the ground played a similar role in "Apollo 13" and other films of this type. Maybe they cannot do anything other than launch rockets?

When to watch?
When everything else fails you. If its the last thing in the shop. Even then I would not reccommend it to anyone. A great cast let down badly by a poor storyline and plot.