First Man

Rating

C (74/100)

Three words

Biography, Slow, Long

Brief Review

A biographical movie about Neil Armstrong during the years leading up to his famous first steps on the moon. This is the type of movie that will probably win awards, but isn’t all that enjoyable to the average person. Two big reasons for this: 1) Neil Armstrong is a rocket scientist, people not necessarily known for their exciting personalities and 2) there isn’t really all that much that actually happens. The movie is very focused on his family/personal life and ends up feeling more like a TV biography than a movie. That’s not to say the movie is totally uninteresting though. The rocket/space scenes are intense and entertaining and he went through more personal struggles than I knew about. Time has also seemed to forget just how much turmoil surrounded the launch to the moon, especially for us that weren’t alive. I walked away thinking if the Apollo program was today, it would have been shut down. Ultimately for those that were alive during the era or really enjoy biographical movies, this is probably a lot more enjoyable. For everyone else, this movie will feel fairly slow and long.