Review – The Right Stuff

How can they start with a subject this fascinating – the early days of the U.S. space program – and come up with something this dreadful? I haven’t read the source book, but Tom Wolfe isn’t supposed to be this bad. The lion’s share of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of the director, who appears to have no notion at all whatsoever about how to pace a movie. The picture dwells at great length on apparently irrelevant detail and then zips rapidly past the interesting stuff. We also get treated to gimmicks, such as an annoying clicking noise that shows up on the soundtrack every time there’s a reporter on screen. But the flat attempts at humor are what really slays this stinker. The antics of the fighter jockeys and test pilots who served as our early astronauts might amuse the former fans of The Man Show, but most other audience members will be disappointed at how crude and dumb a lot of our “best and brightest” apparently were. If you want to see a parade of actors such as Ed Harris and Scott Glenn back when they were still young and handsome, here’s your chance. Otherwise this is likely to disappoint. See if desperate