Movie Review: First Man

chekohler (70)in #movies • 6 years ago (edited)

Hey Steem Movie Lovers

The eagle has landed and we're off to explore the latest space movie Hollywood has placed on our doorsteps.

I'm a big space movie lover since I'm generally interested in space travel, its something I'm fascinated by and I follow exploits in the field fo space travel regularly. I got the chance to check out First Man and allow me to be the First Man to say this movie does not hit its calculated flight tragectory.

The moon landings have been one of the most controversial stories of our modern times with many believing it never happened making it one juicy ass story with the director and actors literally having an insane amount of material to craft a good story, pick out the points political, financial and personal, that they would like to address with this movie so in my mind it was an easy slam dunk to be movie of the year.

So how did it turn out?

PS: If you're a flat earth believer please turn away now, the Earth is round in this movie, ouch yeah I know right? Hurts doesn't it! Well, get over it!

Plot for First Man

La La Land, Oscar-winning duo director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man. The riveting story of NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong's journey from pilot & engineer to controversial history maker during the years 1961-1969.

Trailer for First Man

What I thought of First Man

Naturally, I had high expectations given the hype, but sadly, I was disappointed.

Tries to tackle too much and does too little

First of all, this movie drags like you will not believe, filled with unnecessary shorts and unfleshed out story arcs that make no sense and have no impact on the overall direction of the story and you actually have to know a bit about the whole era to piece together what is actually going on.

Neil is miserable ALL the time

One issue with the movie is that Neil Armstrong is portrayed as a colourless technocrat, who is somewhat cold to his family. The movie focuses mainly on his family relationships, the death of his daughter, his supposed non-existent interactions with people and the landing on the moon is somewhat secondary, therefore the movie lacks a lot of drama.

This is unfortunate since Armstrong led a very charmed life as a fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. The movie covers three of his serious incidents while flying, and he had at least three more which could have shown a better depiction of his trails rather them him being annoyed over having to go to funerals.

The movie leads us to believe he was a recluse and only had one mission in life which was to land on the moon and damn any and everyone who stands in his way.

I'm sure, at least at a few points in his life, Neil Armstrong cracked a smile. You wouldn't think so from watching this. I know he shunned public attention, but I find it impossible to believe Neil Armstrong could possibly have been as lifeless and wooden as he was portrayed in this film.

Topics tackled lacked depth

If the movie is supposed to be about Armstrong and how he became the man he was, then I must have missed something because he flies one plane and then next thing you know his lead on space exploration to the moon.

The movie also glosses over the misplaced disdain military pilots had for their civilian counterparts. The complaint was that civilian pilots by virtue of their engineering training were too mechanical and not true flyers.

This was not true of Armstrong who got his pilots license at the age of 17. The movie should have started and taken us through how he had all the makings of greatness before he knew it.

He was considered a brilliant engineer by his peers, and he was rightfully selected to be the commander of Apollo 11. That brilliance is not captured on screen. By the end of his career, he had flown over 200 different aircraft. He was persistent and a perfectionist and his I think the movie should have brought that out.

Supporting characters are paper thin

The main characters all suffer from superficial once overs. The astronauts were all household names but you wouldn't know it from this movie. The movie also had a hard time capturing just how terrifying some of the events were and the supporting cast doesn't really have a chance to show us all that was on the line at the time and how tragic the loss of life was on this mission.

Claire Foy as the wife was ok but she also had a degree of coldness about her, you honestly don't feel anything for her and all she complains about is well I wish I was married to a boring old dentist. Wow, thanks for discrediting your husbands' history-making profession. That's icy cold if you ask me.

Terrible shots

The close ups were so close-up that they made you want to back right out of the theater, and were shot in a way to make them resemble shaky-handed home-video footage shot on a hand-held. The camera just refused to hold still for anything in this movie, and it was infuriating and sometimes nauseating.

My rating

I'm not sure how they could have made a movie about Neil Armstrong and the first moon landing more sobby-eyed or depressing. It managed to capture none of the majesty, grandeur, or scope of the undertaking- it was just a wet-blanket of constant angst.

If we were to count down to the lift-off of this movie I would start at 10 and stop at about 6.5. It may be one flop for Ryan and Damien but one giant failure for movie-goers.

If you are thinking this is going to be a fun ride or a great movie like Apollo 13, well you're in for a bumpy ride. I would suggest you just stream Apollo 13 and watch that one again, or watch this and then Apollo 13 and compare the 2 for yourself.

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Movie Review: First Man

Plot for First Man

What I thought of First Man

My rating

Let's connect

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