Directed by Damien Chazelle
Written by Josh Singer, based on the book by James R. Hansen
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, Lukas Haas, Shea Whigham, Brian d’Arcy James, Cory Michael Smith, J. D. Evermore, John David Whalen, Ethan Embry, Skyler Bible, Ben Owen, Olivia Hamilton, Kris Swanberg, Ciarán Hinds, Shawn Eric Jones, William Gregory Lee, Steven Coulter
Soundtrack: Justin Hurwitz
To borrow a phrase from our friends in the District, I get “butt cised” for movies about manned spaceflight (and Pablo Schreiber).
Whether it’s The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Interstellar, The Martian, heck, give me Moonraker, I’m on board,
Which is why it’s so painful for me to say First Man is a real mixed bag.
Overall, I give it a lukewarm recommendation based largely on the technical achievements (especially given a budget significantly under $100 million), in particular there’s some top-notch miniature work and some wonderful production design, but I absolutely hated the way much of the movie is shot (the camera is often way too close, and there are long stretches, especially in the Mission Control scenes, that are shot like an episode of The Office, and it’s awful), the story and what is and isn’t selected to be told feels very hodgepodge, there are a lot of characters to keep track of with zero help, and, in the end, I’m just not entirely sure what the goal of the movie was.
If the point was to demonstrate how insane it was to try to go the Moon with 1960s technology, mission accomplished, because that definitely comes across (and there’s another personal thread that gets paid off). Beyond that though, First Man feels more like a bigger-budgeted mumblecore movie that happens to be about Neil Armstrong than anything else.
I mean, I get it, it’s hard to do movies based on real-life people and events, but even at the end of this film there’s a disclaimer that things have been generalized, so, just go out and make a movie; it’s okay if it feels like a movie. I guess there was some thought of not doing things in typical Hollywood fashion, but it was hard not to think about this film in the hands of someone else to illicit more of an emotional response.
So, yeah, worth seeing once, I guess; maybe it’s worth doing in IMAX for the visuals, but I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again.
Rating: ★★★☆☆