Suspension of disbelief!

Several weeks after seeing previews of “The Astronaut Farmer” with Billy Bob Thornton I finally got to see the movie last night and I just have this to offer. Movie critics be damned! What a fun movie that was. The critics have been tearing it up, calling it improbable and far-fetched. It’s a story of a

Texas

rancher who, after having had to drop out of the NASA astronaut training program, determines to build his own rocket in his barn on a

Texas

ranch and launch himself into earth orbit and then return safely.   

Now if a critic wants to go after a movie technically or artistically that’s fine. Those are good enough reasons I suppose. But it’s a movie for crying out loud! Reminds me of the uproar about “The DaVinci Code” which will be found in the FICTION section of any bookstore that stocks it.  I’ll bet that not a word was written about Star Wars being far fetched and unrealistic and I’m pretty sure that the Harry Potter movies and the Lord of the Rings trilogy escaped that accusation as well.

I did feel that Billy Bob Thornton’s characterization came up a little short of the kind of heroic sort I would have preferred to see. Moments that might have had the audience cheering just didn’t quite make it. I did notice that a lot of the people stayed until the bitter end of the credits trying, I think, to get that last sweet detail of emotion from the material that ran behind the scrolling print on the screen.  

Word Of Warning from the previews: There’s yet another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie looming ominously on the horizon later this year.