Zohno I started watching this flick with 0 expectations or knowledge what was to come. It mesmerized me from the beginning: A merciless psychological drama/tragedy about a disturbed, narcissistic, flunked astronaut candidate who is determined to build his own rocket whatever the cost. He is quite happy to ruin his family's fortune and future while fulfilling The Dream. And his folks are going on with his delusions and supporting him despite the ultimate ruin he is leading them. The Astronaut becomes the ultimate manipulative psychopath who gives POO about nothing and no one except his dream. I found this to be very refreshing and viciously entertaining. Then comes the middle movie climax: Astronaut decides to take off without the help of his "ground control"-family and promptly wrecks his silly spacecraft. At that time I'm in seventh movie-heaven: They are killing the main character unexpectedly In the middle of the movie! Almost original and very effective! But then the obnoxious farmer crawls out of the wreckage and keeps on going with his shenanigans. What the heck? I was unknowingly watching a family-feel-good movie? And a truly horrible one to say the least! I give the 1 extra star because they managed to fool me.

david-2829 I wanted to like this movie, and it caught my attention at the beginning... but as the movie devolved into trite, feel-good, sentimental mush I went from enjoyment to frustration.I know people will say this is a family film, but I like my family to have good role models - not some dreamer who pursues his desires at all expenses. Yes it is important to pursue your dreams, but when you start a family and need to be there for a wife & three children, you don't gamble everything on a foolhardy mission likely to kill you. That's not admirable, it's not responsible... it's selfish.So the core message is white-washed, and then you get other junk messages like throwing a brick through a window is okay if you were angry and you apologize later, ... and promiscuity is okay in your teens (when Charles reminds the shrink he asked her "to go to the moon with him" and she said that was just about getting laid.) The acting wasn't bad, but the music was bland (cue "We Did It" music, cue "We're going through a rough time" music, etc.) . My initial thought was that this movie might be okay for my 10-year old... but the more I thought about the messages and the annoyances, I don't think so.

alohahome This is a solid family movie about faith and hope and it was a box office dud. For all the complaining out there about the lack of family entertainment, exactly how could a movie like this do so poorly? I certainly hope this was a fluke. No nudity. No real profanity to speak of. This film features a close knit family, a supportive wife and grand father, two little daughters who love their daddy and also his life long dream to launch into orbit with his own privately built rocket constructed on his Texas ranch. By the way, this is basically a fantasy but the director evidently does not think so, as you will happily discover if you get a chance to see it. If you can relate to the concept of unshakable faith in yourself against all odds, and would be willing to let two of the most adorable little daughters this side of Jupiter steal your heart away for 104 minutes, then this movie was made for you. How so very odd it is to be inspired by the unbelievable. Or maybe not so odd after all?

ghenipus Since we've lived through the very beginning of commercialized spaceflight, the notion of an engineer and former astronaut trying to build a working rocket and space vehicle in his barn isn't that difficult to entertain, on one condition. The ATTEMPT makes for a good story, but so long as the film takes itself at all seriously, the man shouldn't be able to actually succeed. The first half of this picture is an interesting film about a man, Farmer, who is putting the finishing touches on a Mercury-Atlas style rocket, complete with capsule and what looks like a surplus Mercury project spacesuit (which he wears positively everywhere that he goes, much like a five-year-old carting around a favorite stuffed-animal). His family believes in him seemingly because it's more fun to entertain his fantasy than it is to rain on his parade, his neighbors are taking bets on whether or not he'll die much less succeed, the government is investigating him ever since he tried to obtain 10,000 gallons of rocket fuel (two awkward FBI agents are inserted for comic relief, and the FAA plays the heavy with threats to shoot him down) but no one except for Farmer himself authentically feels that he'll ever launch. Up to this point, the film is kind of like Fitzcarraldo with a booster rather than a steamship -- you don't believe he'll pull it off, but you keep watching to see just how he'll fail. And, had he actually failed, even if he'd given up after his first fantastic, life and property endangering horizontal launch, the film would have worked as an inspiring story about a genius with a crazy dream who knowingly bites off more than anyone can chew, but keeps right on biting.Instead, the film changes direction mid-stream and crams so many suspensions of disbelief into such a short time that it looses whatever credibility that it may have spent the first half gaining. How would a man under investigation by the government for building his own rocket be able to obtain another junk booster for his second attempt? How could Farmer completely rebuild his rocket from scratch in such a short time period that his very young girls don't look noticeably older from project start to project finish? How would a barn and a house within walking distance survive the launch of an Atlas booster unscathed? How could a fifteen-year old boy single-handedly man both launch control and mission control for an orbital flight, AND maintain contact with a spacecraft on the far side of the planet without any help from relay stations over yonder? They go on and on. I guess the biggest question is, why did the writers of this film resort to such a cop-out as suddenly endowing their never-succeed-but-never-give-up main character with the Midas touch, when they've spent half of the film laying out all of the reasons that Farmer's dream really wouldn't work? Maybe they figured we'd have so much fun watching the thing go up that we wouldn't ask these questions. Maybe some watchers will.If you set out to make a fantasy, don't ask us to place it in reality for half the film. If you set out to do a story about a man whose dreams get knocked down again and again, don't suddenly make him inhumanly successful at all he attempts. I liked the first part of this film, but to paraphrase a line from a more famous movie, Flying into space ain't like dusting crops. Depicting it as such takes more suspension of reality than I wanted to give this film.