Day: January 29th, Movie: 31

Well, this one is not really a science fiction film. Maybe a few of the events at the very end of the film may let this qualify, but I wanted to watch this movie so that is the reason why I had this be a second film of the day in the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView. Space Cowboys was directed by Clint Eastwood and starred several older actors in critical roles in an Armageddon-like movie.

Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner played a group of pilots who lost a mission back in the late 1950s and spent decades in regret. When a Russian satellite was falling out of orbit, NASA had to recruit Eastwood to fix the navigation system on the satellite, which was one that he had created and no one else knew about any longer.

Eastwood blackmailed Bob Gerson (James Cromwell) to allow his old crew to come back and fly the mission or he would not help. Against his better judgment, Gerson agree only if the crew could pass their physicals and the training other astronauts go through.

As I said, there is a lot of similarities to the movie Armageddon here, including being about as unlikely of a situation. The plot implausibility was a major factor for this movie. Even though you had four very charismatic characters involved in the story, what they are asking the audience to buy is a lot.

Still, if you can toss those doubts out of your mind, Space Cowboys was a fun and pleasurable ride.

Along with the four lead actors, we have several top notch stars involved including William Devane, Courtney B. Vance, Barbara Babcock, Blair Brown, Loren Dean, and Rade Serbedzija.

There were some predictable moments and some clichés, but the four stars are entertaining and a joy to watch.