From the advertising, it seems like they made it in to an annoying melodrama. Wife whining about husband’s job etc...
Sad move. Mr. Armstrong was a Naval pilot, brilliant engineer and American hero. The film insults him, the American space program and the American people who funded the mission to the moon.
Goes to show that the 200,000 people involved in the American space program in Downey from 1950 to 2005 were more brilliant than anyone in Hollywood.
Are you perceiving we didn't like it yet?
Thanks for the review. I’ll buy the bluray when it’s released.
I liked it. It’s clear the film makers were painstaking about accuracy. The events were thoroughly researched. Gosling was excellent for the part.
The soundtrack was incredible. You felt like you were there.
Although these men were stellar engineers and pilots, they were also human, with apprehension and fears. The movie showed this.
Armstrong was a private and singleminded person. He kept his feelings close to the vest and never talked about his deceased daughter, whom he clearly had a special relationship with. His press conferences were awkward-he didn’t give more than a three word answer to any question.
The prickly relationship with his wife was believable and probably similar to most relationships with this dynamic. Both he and Janet had very tough shells which seemed impossible to penetrate. In the situation where death is on the line with every mission, it was no doubt safer that way. Foy’s native British snuck through on a few occasions, but I was particularly interested in that, so was listening closely for it.
The only aspect that bothered me a little was the jerky nature of the filming (not referring to the flight scenes where no doubt it was realistic). I know this is a technique to simulate home movie and documentary filming, but it’s just not my cup of tea.
Definitely worth seeing and the finest movie I’ve seen so far this year.
If you’re going to skip something, skip A Star Is Born - yuch.
A Navy SEAL astronaut interviews the "First Man" director. According to some on this board, he, too, must be a "fraud."
I will not be making a contribution at that altar.
Just came from seeing “First Man” on the super-duper senior matinee rate. Glad I did it then, so I can’t whine quite as much about the price.
As others have noted here, what they presented was historically accurate, but left out large pieces of the narrative that would have better explained things. For instance, no mention was given to the Gemini 8 docking problem, nor the fact that, after the Apollo test flight burned up, why it happened and that a redesign was required, which backed things up some.
As to Armstrong himself, it would have been nice to mention that he was a Naval pilot in the Korean War, or all the things he did AFTER Apollo 11. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he appeared in NASA in 1961 and did nothing after the moon flight. And even the moon flight seemed like a Kubrickian fantasy. It was “one small step...”, mourning his dead child, then blast off from the moon.
One more thing about the “global” effort and affect of the moon landing. Earlier in the movie, when the USSR beat us into space, beat us to the first EVA and a few other space firsts, there was a pronounced notation of the “Space Race” between the two countries. Yet, when the US pounded the USSR on the most important race, no kudos to NASA and the American spirit that had done it. Well, save for a replay of the JFK speech from the early 1960s, and that was shown on TV while the Apollo 11 team were in isolation after their return!
All in all, I could have waited for it to show up on cable and watch it on my big screen TV. The visuals would be close and the audio would have been, too.
So just saw this film tonight as a guest of a friend.
Summary: I loved the movie. It was a study of a man (men) who was (were) brave in the face of the unknown (space exploration).
It was exciting on the level of “Apollo 13”, yet more a study of an individual’s (Neil Armstrong’s) experience in the space program of the 1960s.
It was suspenseful and dramatic, and in that sense fulfilled all of the prerequisites for entertainment. Ryan Gosling did a great job not being Ryan Gosling, making you feel that he was someone else (Neil Armstrong).
There was drama and intrigue and bravery making this great for the big screen.
It’s all done well, but at the point where we all know the denouement begins, “One small step for man...” I seriously wondered where the flag was? It was missing. But then I remembered the controversy surrounding this movie and the flag. However, what followed in the movie was a great, IMO, tribute to the US regarding our contribution to space exploration.
I told my husband he had to see this movie on the big screen. It’s one of those big action films that can’t be replicated at home. Seriously, the flag controversy is a non-issue. Take it from someone who notices these things.