Review: First Man

“Neil Armstrong reaches for the moon in a realistic, understated way, that whilst impressively filmed, fails to fully immerse you in the experience.”

Films based on an amazing event that most could only ever imagine doing should captivate audiences. However, these films don’t always work out. For example, Robert Zemeckis brought us the very real feeling of walking on a high tension wire between the two world trade centre towers in the film Wire, yet few went to see it. Here, Damien Chazelle brings us a very real experience of not just landing on the moon, but experiencing the whole journey from the early days of NASA right up to returning to Earth after the successful journey. Yet again, few have gone to see it. Whilst the journey is interesting, and the moon scenes are breathtakingly realistic, the whole thing doesn’t quite pull you in and keep you invested in the story.

Armstrong is presented as a very low key, straight shooter of a man who keeps his emotions bottled up, especially when dealing tragedy in both family and in work. The problem is, it’s hard to get engrossed in a character study of a man who doesn’t reveal a lot of character, in a film that is 141 minutes long.

So the film needs cool space stuff to keep you munching away on popcorn. And this film has loads of space stuff, real nerdy space stuff too. But that’s just it, it’s a little too nerdy in its telling of the Gemini project, followed by the Apollo missions. It’s the sort of space story that engineers will probably love, but their kids will be a little bored by.

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. The film delivers much of what you’d expect, and does so in a very competent way. But overall, it doesn’t quite feel satisfying for what it should be for a film about landing a man on the moon. In fact, last year, the movie Hidden Figures was completely engrossing throughout and was easily one of the best films of the year. Yet it didn’t show a single rocket, or the moon landing.

Director Damien Chazelle makes a few odd stylistic choices, such as framing many scenes of dialogue in extreme close up. He also overuses shaky cam, as if he’s personally trying to make me leave the theatre with motion sickness. When rockets are shaking and lives are in danger, then the shaky cam makes sense. However, during the character moments, where characters are just talking, we don’t need movement on the screen.

The structure of the plot also lacks a sense of building up towards the moon landing, so when Apollo 11 launches in 1969, the story doesn’t truly feel as though it has built to this moment.

The film does have a number of great highlights however that make it worth the trip to the cinema. Gosling, whilst not playing the most cinematic character, was very good in the role and had clearly prepared for the role. As the biggest star of the film, he had to carry a lot of the marketing, as the film featured very few household names.

Rising star Claire Foy provided the more emotional moments of the film, as the wife who’s lived through a lot and gives more support than she gets in return. Her character could have almost been the main focus to build the narrative around, as it may have given the film more focus.

Despite my criticism of the realistic tone of the space program, the realism of space travel was refreshing. The film does a great job of showing you how brave these guys were, as they were literally going into the most dangerous environments inside of a tin can with little idea if they would be safe or not. The film has a grainy quality to it that makes it feel old and gives everything in the 1960s a more lived in feel to it, as opposed to feeling like pop- art.

The moon landing gives the film a chance to show us something new. The detail is much better than anything I’d seen before, and you get a real sense of the beauty, yet emptiness of the moon surface.

The film doesn’t oversell its message. It presents the moon through the eyes of those going there. It doesn’t overstate it, but it doesn’t undersell it either. This was an amazing achievement in human history, but in the over scheme of life, it’s just an achievement that allowed us to reach for a goal, achieve it, and then move on with life.

First Man hasn’t done well at the box office. It faced some stiff opposition and has only grossed $57 mil worldwide. It may crawl to a breakeven box office, but only time will tell. It’s certainly worth going to the cinema for, as the big screen does the film justice in a visual sense.

The five bearded questions:

1. Was it worth a cinema trip? Yes

2. Would I See It Again at the Cinema? No.

3. Would I buy it on Blu-ray: (only films I really love get bought these days) No 4. Do I Recommend people see it? Yes.

5. Any cheese/ Disney style bullshit?: (such as jokes wedged in at serious moments, because fun!). No.