Fantastic!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This 20 minute short served as the trailer for and basis of "Bottle Rocket" the feature, which in turn launched Wes Anderson's long career as one of our most critically admired directors.I remember how talked about the short was in film circles, and how it inspired Polly Platt (long time James Brooks partner) to get behind Anderson and champion his getting a shot at doing a feature version. There were many envious young film-makers and film students out there!While the short is rough, it already has the odd, intelligent wit and strong comic acting along with the surprisingly complex characters that marks all Anderson's work. Visually it's nothing special, lacking the specific and idiosyncratic film language Anderson would make his own in films to come, but it tells it's enjoyable shaggy dog story just fine. Luke and Owen Wilson are both very good, and amazingly young. The short is available as an extra on the Criterion release of 'Bottle Rocket' and is well worth seeing - both as a piece of modern film history, and as an entertaining film in it's own right.

A simple movie that went far beyond what could have been expected. I have been fascinated with Wes Anderson ever since. The Wilson brothers shocked me in that they were so easy going through the whole film. Never before have I been so intrigued about a movie that involved so little detail, which in itself proves there was great detail and a great effort in keeping the detail. The laughs are there, but it's no Happy Gilmore. That's a big reason why I like it. I would recommend this film to anyone who is quirky and who likes to see a young, raw Owen Wilson. Wes Anderson has gone on to make other wonderful pieces of filmery, but you gotta love his first effort purely for its simplicity.

When I was going to highschool with Owen, I alwasy knew he'd make a movie. What I didn't know is that it would be SO GOOD! This is the first Owen movie I ever saw. It has all the elements of a well crafted film. Owen knew what he was doing when he wrote this movie. His acting was top notch and the interaction between him and his friends make me think of the way I relate to my friends. Owen takes the viewers in and doesn't let them out until he says so. The scenes were filmed in Texas (Owen's native state) and it is so interesting to see the way he pays homage to Texas in not one, but many scenes. If you liked Owen in his blockbuster movies, you owe it to yourself to see him in bottle rocket. The movie that "launched" his career as our generations James Stewart.

It was rather interesting, as a huge fan of the feature, to finally get a look at the original 13 minute short, which the director himself says he cannot watch without cringing. I didn't cringe at all, in fact I was elated to see the bare bones of a simple plot, simply worded and simply acted. It was great to see what two years, a great production crew, a great cast and 6 million dollars can do to a movie. Unfortunately it's hard for me to separate the original from the feature, but one can definitely see the potentially unique voices in this piece.