Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 134
Fresh: 77 | Rotten: 57
The Astronaut Farmer is a charming, inspirational drama that successfully avoids modern cinematic cliches while appealing to the optimistic dreamer in all of us.
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 14
The Astronaut Farmer is a charming, inspirational drama that successfully avoids modern cinematic cliches while appealing to the optimistic dreamer in all of us.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 279,514
An aspiring astronaut who was forced to forsake his dream of exploring space in order to save the family farm begins building his own personal rocket as a means of reaching the stars in this quirky rural drama starring Billy Bob Thornton. There once was a time when Charlie Farmer (Thornton) seemed like a shoo-in for NASA's esteemed astronaut training program. An Air Force pilot who held a degree in aerospace engineering, Charlie was well on his way to blasting off when a family crisis grounded
Oct 15, 2006 Wide
Jul 10, 2007
$11.0M
Warner Independent
All Critics (135) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (59) | DVD (21)
You either roll with the hokum or you don't. If you do, the essential message of realizing your dreams flies as well as Jimmy Stewart's angel wings. If you don't, reality is as close as the nearest window.
The Astronaut Farmer's goofy quality makes it totally endearing. It's also super entertaining. Critics are fond of referring to movies as a 'great ride.' With this one, the words couldn't be more apt.
Filled with lovely images (the opening credit sequence, of Charlie in his spacesuit, riding the range on horseback, is a beaut) and nice character turns, The Astronaut Farmer nonetheless veers too close to cliche.
What could have been a sagebrush Fitzcarraldo wants to be a feel-good fable.
I was content to go along for the ride with this excellently cast labor of love -- which shows just how much you can accomplish with $12 million and more imagination than most big-studio re leases can muster these days.
It's hard not to like a movie so determined to make you feel the love of a family, to make you feel that every dream can become a reality and that every mortgage can be rescued by the sudden death of a family member and his inheritance.
Self-fondling Americana
The Astronaut Farmer is one of those movies that you don't believe for a moment while you're watching it, but you leave with a warm glow. But by the time you've driven home, you realize you've been conned.
Billy Bob dreams of space in uneven fantasy drama.
We should be routing for Farmer and delighted that his dreams are finally becoming a reality, but, instead, the implausibility of the whole thing, the sheer Disneyification of its premise, the Capra-corn nature of its "follow your dreams and never, ever q
An endearing and entertaining aspirational movie straight from the heart of the American dream: you can do or be anything you set your heart on. President or astronaut, it's your right.
What could easily have come off as preposterous or, worse yet, downright corny is made rather poignant and genuinely uplifting and inspiring.
Must surely be the year's most far-fetched movie!
A barely believable flight of fancy that's fun the whole family, provided you're willing to buy its cartoon astrophysics and cops who can't figure out a way to prevent a loose cannon from catapulting himself skyward at a rate in excess of escape velocity.
How much you're going to like this gentle, whimsical family film may depend upon how much you can suspend your disbelief and accept it as a metaphorical fantasy.
It's hard not to like this goofy little film...engaging and uplifting for young and old.
While it is far too long, especially in the home stretch, The Astronaut Farmer is a heartwarming and fun story about the tenacity it takes to see a dream through.
The filmmakers reveal a keen eye for oddities in the American landscape be it a pair of conjoined twins trying to look normal, a huge ark sitting in the middle of a Montana town or a rocket nestled in a barn.
It earns emotion because Farmer's arguments with the F.A.A. and his own wife appeal to basic hopes of liberty - belief that dreaming doesn't have to end with adulthood.
Movies, even if they are ridiculous, are supposed to give us a desire to believe it could happen. This movie never comes close.
As sweet as new-mown hay, "The Astronaut Farmer" is a gentle movie about pursuing dreams regardless of the cost.
a quirky, feel-good flick that espouses the virtues of following your dreams, no matter how improbable.
Fueled by a decidedly American formula of can-do crazy, The Astronaut Farmer feels, for all its libertarianism, a little lost in space.
A wise, weird and wonderful indie film that is chock-full of quirky characters, intriguing situations and sly social satire.
This movie was silly--okay, stupid--a lot of times. I wouldn't recommend it.
August 12, 2011Super Reviewer
The Astronaut Farmer is the fictional story of a former NASA astronaut who builds his own rocket to travel in space. The film follows the same feel good formula that many other films have taken, and the results are somewhat mixed. The film is average and can almost be seen as recycled ideas from previous films dealing
January 27, 2011
Super Reviewer
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