Rating: 
Summary: One of the best
Review: The Right Stuff is, without a doubt, one of the best movies of the last 20 years. Every scene works beautifully...right down to Yeager's cameo in Pancho's bar (he's smiling the whole time). Every character is memorable, from Yeager & Glenn to Nurse Murch. The entire piece melds to form an epic piece of movie-making.This is one of the only movies I own, and I never tire of watching it.
Rating:
Summary: A tale in epic proportions of the human spirit.
Review: the film hilighted the human spirit and its willingness to soar. Everyone who has ever wanted to see a good space movie, pick this one up off the shelf. The filming angles and the emotions portrayed by the characters are brillant and should not be passed by. True stories are the greatest ones to be told and this one was told with much truth and highly convincing.
Rating:
Summary: A fable of the early days of the space program
Review: "The Right Stuff' is an epic movie that makes one feel like standing up and cheering at the end. It is brilliantly photographed and performed, and the script is easily the best of its type ever written. It is not only a great story about momentous events, but also a moving (and often very funny) look at the real people behind great events. I've known many test pilots and military fliers, and no movie has ever captured their often off-the-wall antics the way that this one does. Everyone involved in the making of this classic movie should have received an award of some kind - its lack of success at the box office is baffling. It is one of the few movies that I've owned in three formats (VHS, LD, and DVD), and the DVD version is easily the best yet - with the exception of the necessity to set subtitle and language selections every time one watches it. "The Right Stuff" is history not as it was, but as it should have been.
Rating:
Summary: An inspiring film
Review: As one of those children of baby boomers who was raised on stories of the Mercury 7 and the Apollo program, this movie in a nutshell shows what the space program was (and still should be) all about. Unlike the sanitized lives we know so well from "Life" magazine and countless interviews, this film makes those astronauts into real, flawed, 'heroic' people. For those who enjoyed Apollo 13, this is a definite must-see and an obvious inspiration for that movie, although it is less tightly-focused, since it focuses on much more than just one flight. The DVD copy has fine video and even better sound -- well worth the investment. And Yeager's cameo is one of the most thrilling I've seen, not because of his performance, but because of what he means to this country and civilization.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but flawed movie
Review: Although the movie is entertaining and has a fine cast, it is flawed in several respects. Firstly, the engineers who designed the Mercury spacecraft are presented as a bunch of Teutonic dictators indifferent to the wishes of the astronauts. In reality, Wernher von Braun's Germans were not deeply involved in the design of the spacecraft, only its Redstone booster rocket. I believe that the engineers are no less heroes than than the astronauts and many sacrificed their families and even their lives as a result of overwork. Secondly, the way Gus Grissom is portrayed is outrageous in that he is presented as some sort of screw-up causing the sinking of his spacecraft, Liberty Bell 7. The fact that, in reality, he was assigned to the first flights of both the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft (where he lost his life in the Apollo 1 fire) shows that the NASA people had the highest confidence in his abilities. They wouldn't keep someone in the program just so that it wouldn't look to the outside world that there were failures as was proven by the fact that Scott Carpenter was not assigned to another flight due to his relatively poor performance in Aurora 7. Finally, John and Annie Glenn are presented as some kind of victims of Vice President's Johnson's ire. No one did more for the space program than LBJ who was a bigger supporter than even President Kennedy was and the Glenn's were personally enriched as a result of the controversial Life magazine contract with the astronauts which Kennedy and Johson supported. I don't believe LBJ was some sort of ogre for wanting a little media coverage and he probably wasn't aware of Annie Glenn's stutter. Still, the movie gives a good background for the training of the astronauts and what they had to go through.
Rating:
Summary: Light This Candle
Review: I was not alive during the Mercury program and I barely remember the last Apollo flights, but this movie stirs patriotic emotions that can at least approximate what must have been felt then. While the movie could easily have slid into syrupy reminiscence it avoids that trap and shows the Mercury astronauts in a realistic light. That the greatness of the achievement still shines through is a tribute to what they accomplished.
Rating:
Summary: An epic expeience of space and flight brilliantly filmed.
Review: This movie covers early developments of the US space industry spanning from the late 1940's through to the 1950's and 1960's. It is without doubt the most definitive expose on the young test-pilot's who flew the first manned aircraft to break the sound barrier. It moves on to cover some of the most dramatic and exciting events of the first years of the space age. Brilliantly acted by an all-star cast. Five stars. Well worth adding to your home collection for the fact of just pure history alone. Highly recommended for those interested in real space exploration and aviation history.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest film of last quarter century
Review: This shamefully overlooked epic still stands as one of the great films about the American experience, particularly in its knowing but not quite cynical portrayal of the way appearance becomes reality in the national mind. Without being jingoistic, it is a wonderfully patriotic movie, seemingly almost against the filmmakers' will. The contrast between Chuck Yeager, here presented as the archtypal American individualist -- and a dying breed -- against the media-driven creation of the Mercury astronauts works well, probably because director Kaufman allows himself the time to present the men behind the cartoons. Unforgettable scenes abound. The lyrical senquence at the end of the film, where each Mercury astronaut silently acknowledges their unspoken bond with one another, is one of the most moving and beautiful film moments I have ever seen. Rich symbolic interludes coexist comfortably beside scatalogical humor, political satire next to stirring adventure. Like the space race itself, 'The Right Stuff' is a great American epic and richly deserves to be rediscovered by both viewers and film historians.
Rating:
Summary: All you need to know is in the title
Review: The Right Stuff is exactly what America's first brave astronauts had to have...NASA took the best, the brightest, and the fastest for the dangerous Mercury missions...This movie brings these seven men down to earth in a story that is at once compelling and educational...And, it is interesting to note, that at least one member of those original seven astronauts has flown in every major phase of American space exploration after Mercury... If you own Apollo 13, The Right Stuff is a perfect compliment to your video collection...It is a classic!!
Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best movie I've seen
Review: The casting and the plot are excellent. The movie gives a belivable view of the life of test pilots and thier families in the 60's. Story is full of suprises.
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