October Sky: Critic Reviews

As adapted by Lewis Colick, the screenplay shifts busily among the boys' rocket exploits, Homer's family, conditions at the mine and the influence of a dedicated science teacher, but each of these subplots plays out in familiar ways.

Another Universal Pictures paint-by-numbers feel-gooder!

A professionally crafted family film that reserves all its challenging moments for its characters, letting the audience bask comfortably in the approach of a predetermined warm and fuzzy ending.

This movie has deep values.

It is a film that treats its teen-aged hero and his pals as distinctive, sentient human beings.

Immensely entertaining and unabashedly inspirational!

Believable, subtle, and consistently intelligent!

uplifting family film with great values

Inspiring tale for older tweens and up.

...plays like a TV movie made for everyone who subscribes to Reader's Digest. Still, its manipulations are sincere rather than cynical...

The TV movie subject matter is infused with genuine feeling for the value of learning as a passport to freedom, and an authentic regard for the honest graft of working men.

Director Joe Johnston has crafted a feel good film that doesn't pander to cheap emotions.

October Sky is a movie you want to believe in.

Any film that celebrates a teenager's ability to think instead of throw a ball ought to be cheered.

Though shot in Tennessee, Johnston's October Sky successfully evokes the stifling atmosphere of a blackened 1950s town in the southern West Virginia mountains.

Retreads the soggy ground staked out by Field of Dreams, with sentimental tears and group hugs as the answer to conflicting ideological standpoints.

An enthralling and warm-hearted story about four high school students who taught themselves to build and fly real rockets.

A sweet yet sincere coming-of-age story about fathers and sons, communities pulling together and, above all, heroes.

This small, well-crafted coming-of-age docudrama is a real-life Revenge of the Nerds by way of Stand By Me.

It will lift your spirit and make you feel good about all those who pursue their dreams in the face of large obstacles.

...so full of spirit and letter-perfect filmmaking that I defy anyone to watch this movie without getting a tingle in his or her heart.

The 'follow your dream' theme works, even though the son versus father sub-plot struggles at times.

October Sky doesn't seem like much on paper, but it is an entertaining, smart movie that is calculated to satisfy the all-American notion that anyone can do anything as long as he tries hard enough and never stops believing.

It is about four kids who build rockets, but it is a lot more than that. It is about having the guts to go for your dreams and not worrying about what other people think.

A truly uplifting, heartwarming motion picture!