# Space Cowboys (2000)

### reviewed by
Chad Polenz

    Space Cowboys

There really isn't a thing in "Space Cowboys" that isn't totally predictable and familiar, and yet it's a really fun, feel-good movie that doesn't make you feel like you're being pandered to.

Maybe that's because it's got four great actors or that it's got a good producer/director at the helm or that it offers an original take on an otherwise paint-by-numbers summer popcorn flick. It's kind of a military thriller, it's almost a sci-fi flick but not one of those movies aimed at a sci-fi audiences. It's a grown-up adventure movie that knows how to execute its story.

Clint Eastwood stars as a retired Air Force pilot and engineer who is called upon by his old boss at NASA because a satellite is about to crash into the Earth and the technology is so obsolete even today's rocket scientists can't figure it out. Yadda yadda yadda, Eastwood and his three old* military buddies are the only ones who can fix it and must adapt to the new technology rapidly while at the same time showing up the young hotshots who think they're geniuses.

It's pretty easy to tell what's going to happen here right? Fish-out-of-water stuff, "Let me do it my way junior"-lines and attitudes, an executive commander who's obviously a weasel and a really fantastic ending involving "we'll just barely make it if our calculations are correct"-climaxes. But as much as it sounds like "Apollo 13," "Space Cowboys" really has a lot going for it. Sending four old men into space doesn't seem like all that far-fetched of an idea (not after John Glenn), and Eastwood and company seem to be having a great time here. The screenplay is thorough with its characters and doesn't waste our time trying to explain the details of the "real" conflict going on. It doesn't matter, everyone here is doing such a good job it's actually, uh what's that word - enjoyable.

    GRADE: B

    * = pun intended

Chad'z Movie Page is back! New reviews of the latest movies in easy-to-swallow capsule form with the trendy, Entertainment Weekly-style of letter grades instead of the old star system. Have I sold out? Visit my page and decide for yourself ;-)

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