The Astronaut Farmer is the tale of Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) and his life long dream of building himself a giant rocket and launching it into space. Farmer was a former trainee astronaut for NASA before he was dismissed back in the glory days; he now lives on his ranch with 3 kids and a wife. Farmer is well loved in his town, but everyone thinks he has a screw loose.

Pretty soon, all of those years of spending his money on building the rocket catch up to him, and he is in danger of losing everything. At the same time, Farmer’s search for rocket fuel catches the attention of the government, which starts to garner him some attention. The rest of the story is the anticipation of whether or not he can pull it off, and if he will get the support of his family and the general public.

Despite the nice photography, and an obvious love for the US space programs of the 1960’s (for awhile there you get visually confused as to whether it is taking place in the past or present), this movie had no substance beyond it’s heart. I was completely bored and found it to be utterly predictable and implausible. There was no insight into the planning or building of the rocket, and it was a replica of one of the earlier NASA rockets from the Apollo program or something similar. The problem with that reference was the massive size of the launch area for those older rockets – this rocket was hidden in a building out back (that is over simplifying, but I am trying to make a point). Another problem is that a certain rocket launch remained invisible to the government and NASA; that is just ridiculous.

Billy Bob Thornton’s portrayal of Charles Farmer was quite a bit different than Bad Santa, and probably the nicest guy he has ever played. The rest of the supporting cast (Virginia Madsen as his overly understanding wife, and the kids) were adequate, and forgettable, as was Bruce Willis’ little appearance. If there was anything to enjoy, it was Bruce Dern as Farmer’s Father-in-Law; a small part, but I just like him in everything he does. For the first time I noticed that he may finally be showing his age, he plays a Grandpa in the old school sense very well.

There was a sense that Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) may have been in the back of the minds of the filmmakers, but that movie has been made already. I am a space program fan myself, but that didn’t help me get over the syrupy fluff of the “feel good movie of the year” approach that the Polish brothers took. This movie is a departure from their strange 1999 release Twin Falls Idaho, which was a bizarre and original look into the lives of a set of Siamese twins (played by the Mark and Michael Polish).

The Astronaut Farmer may be a decent standard family film to bring the kids to, but don’t expect to come away with the feelings of hope and optimism the movie was trying to portray; it all seems just a bit too contrived.