Space Cowboys Just Mediocre

Hollywood Dinosaurs Can't Conjure Magic

Itıs a fact of life that movie stars, just like regular people, get older. They may use their substantial monetary resources to at least temporarily arrest the march of time in a cosmetic manner, but age always catches up eventually.

Women in Hollywood have it worse. Few can continue playing the sex symbol into middle age (Rene Russo being a noted exception), and have to resort to, well, old woman roles. Men have it better ‹ many can keep playing sex symbols well past retirement age (Sean Connery comes to mind), and the best ones can just keep playing to their same old strengths until the day they die.

Which brings us to Space Cowboys. The Clint Eastwood-directed and produced film also stars Dirty Harry himself, along with fellow old-timers Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner (throwing in James Cromwell, Courtney B. Vance and William Devane for good measure). The four main characters star as former Air Force hot shots who 40 years prior were robbed the chance at space flight by, well, a monkey. They get a second chance when a giant Russian satellite of ancient design, too large for the shuttle bay, is on a decaying orbit and will enter Earthıs atmosphere in about a month if not diverted. And the only men who understand it, who can fix it, are the dinosaurs of the pre- and early space age. In fact, in the first of many plot twists, it turns out that the satelliteıs guidance system was in fact pirated from SpaceLabıs system ‹ designed by Eastwood.

Now, Iım not going to pretend that Space Cowboys is anything it isnıt ‹ itıs no Apollo 13, for sure, but nor is it Mission to Mars. Itıs exactly what you would expect from a bunch of old pros like those assembled here ‹ a competently made, enjoyable and sometimes quite funny ride. The banter between the boys is one of the best features of the film, particularly between Jones and Eastwood, with Sutherland throwing in some great lines as a septugenarian sex symbol, and Garner, well, not doing a lot.

Quite remarkably, Eastwood has been playing basically the same parts consistently for the past 40 years ‹ and is still a draw, unlike basically any other actor in Hollywood save perhaps Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. And why not? Who can squint like Clint? Who can get away with that gravelly tough-guy delivery without the audience (or the actor himself, for that matter) erupting into laughter, save Clint? Not a soul. So go see Space Cowboys, itıs pretty good and not a bad way to spend two bucks and two hours.

Space Cowboys begins showing at the Apollo Friday night.