Two momentous events happened in July 1969. The first being watched on television, by an estimated 400 million people, was Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon July 20th and the second, after spending the weekend in Memphis I decided to move there, a move that would change my life in many ways. I’ll leave it up to you which was the more important!

“First Man” deals with the landing of the moon where the outcome is already known so for the director Damien Chazelle to a make nail-biting, the edge of the seat last half hour of suspense shows an excellent accomplishment following his work of “Whiplash” and “La-La Land”.

Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, is a man who is disciplined to not show emotions, even in the case of his daughter’s death, to others so the actor gets a lot of credit making this man interesting enough to want to watch and for you to hope he succeeds. It is Jan Armstrong, played by Claire Foy, who provides the personal emotion, especially in a scene where she tells her husband that he is the one who has to tell his kids that he might not return from his mission to land on the moon. She has another dynamite scene where she tells a NASA official that they are all just little boys playing with balsa wood not knowing what they are doing.

The actors surrounding Gosling and Foy, from government figures to fellow astronauts and their wives to politicians are a list of talented actors whose name may not ring bells but their faces are instantly recognizable and they all deliver. To name a few: Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Pablo Schreiber, Olivia Hamilton, Corey Stoll, Lukas Haas, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Brian D’Arcy and Cory Michael Smith.

The opening scene and a couple of others are shots that had to be included to show what these men were up against and why Armstrong was picked to lead the crew for the flight to the moon but knowing where the movie is heading sort of makes it drag during the first hour.

Space films like “Gravity”, “The Right Stuff” and, yes, “2001: A Space Odyssey” are meant to be seen on a 30-90 feet wide by 10-30 feet high movie theatre screen and so should “First Man”.



Movie Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSoRx87OO6k