How It's Used

“Next to the President under the East Room lights were two adorable, fidgeting children; their accomplished, smiling mother; and their father, the nominee—kindly of gaze, square of jaw, dimpled of chin.  Bulletproof of resumé, too, it looks like.”

“But at the same time, the science fiction of 'out there' seems stillborn -- 25 years after the first space shuttle took off, it's news if it returns with all aboard safe and sound. Space elevators and moon bases? C'mon, kid: Your square-jawed rocket engineers of future histories past are now tattooed, pierced software engineers coding social-networking sites.”

"It’s quite a yarn, and the filmmakers relate it with clarity and verve. The film’s high spirits are inseparable from its sober purpose, which is to present a gentle corrective to the idea that American heroism resides only in square-jawed, melancholy stoicism.”