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First Man

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ReformedCharacter
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First Man

#175713

Postby ReformedCharacter » October 23rd, 2018, 10:48 am

This film is a biopic of Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the moon, played by Ryan Gosling. It touches on all of the obvious waypoints, X-15 pilot, the almost fatal Gemini 8 problem involving a stuck thruster during the first ever in-orbit docking (with an Agena rocket) and the bail-out of from the notorious Lunar Landing Training Vehicle.

Unfortunately I found it a bit of a disappointment. Gosling plays Armstrong completely dead-pan throughout without even a hint of a smile. For me this was the main problem, Armstrong was undoubtedly not one of the extroverts in the program but Gosling allows not the least glimmer of the warmth that Armstrong undoubtedly possessed even if rarely expressed.

Claire Foy makes a reasonable job of playing Armstrong's wife Janet but the film fails to develop any of the other people involved in Armstrong's career with Aldrin and Collins (for example) making only the smallest contributions to the film. A lot of opportunities missed in my opinion.

RC

Itsallaguess
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Re: First Man

#238349

Postby Itsallaguess » July 22nd, 2019, 10:19 am

Snorvey wrote:I quite enjoyed it for the most part. It did seem to cover a lot though and seemed to be levering in scenes for the sake of it, making it quite disjointed in certain parts of the film.

The onboard scenes were very good though and demonstrated how 'rough' pure prototypes can be. With the 5.1 SS on, the Gemini launch was quite epic what with all the creaks and bangs along with the roar of the rocket engines. The Apollo lander scene demonstrated how basic the machine was. Pure function, zero frills and I thought they could have spent more time on that.

I just thought they covered too much but otherwise a very watchable movie.


We watched this last night too - we were saving it for near to the 50th anniversary date and I'm glad we did...

I thought it was good, and especially so considering that at the heart of the film is a man who displays very little emotional currency - and it seemed to be a role especially suited to Ryan Gosling to be honest!!

We really enjoyed the on-board scenes, which included just about all the craft shown in the film, earth-bound and space-bound - you got a real sense of claustrophobia with the tight camera-work, and when things started to rattle around, it really did convey the sense that almost everything was a working prototype of one sort or another......The opening scenes were really well done, showing Neil's earlier test-pilot operations and how hairy they were at times...

I thought the moon landing itself was a bit of a let-down to be honest. From the moment he stepped off the ladder, I didn't really get a sense that we were looking at anything other than a Hollywood film-set and some CGI, and the let-down was compounded when I realised that Spielberg himself was involved with the film, which I spotted during the credits.

The period setting was well done, and I thought Armstrong's wife was portrayed well, remembering the domestic life that went on whilst partners were 'flying their balsa models like little boys'....

I didn't know too much about Neil Armstrong's daughter, so it was good to get an insight into how he may have been motivated by that side of his life.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


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