First Man: Movie Review

Director Damien Chazelle who dazzled audiences with “Whiplash” and “La La Land” takes on the story of Neil Armstrong in the ambitious biopic, “First Man”. Ryan Gosling takes on the role of the famous astronaut and takes us on his journey to becoming the first person to walk on the moon.  Based on the book by James R. Hansen, “First Man” focuses on Armstrong during the years 1961-1969, starting with the loss of his daughter and his joining NASA.

“First Man” opens with an amazing sequence involving Armstrong attempting to orbit Earth in a plane. We are put inside the cockpit with him and we can feel just how intense it must have been. His return to the ground does not go smoothly. It was at that point, I realized that Chazelle would be taking us on a similar ride when it came to the mission later-on in the story. Each time we are put into a cockpit with the astronauts in “First Man” we can feel how uneasy they are. We can feel their anxiety. These are some of the best moments, and I have never seen anything like them in a film.

The problem I had with “First Man” is that we spend quite a bit of time with the people in Armstrong’s life, but aside from his wife, Janet (Claire Foy), they aren’t very interesting.  This is where “First Man” failed to grab me.  Running at about 140 minutes, much of the film felt like it would never end. It just dragged along, with brief moments of excitement or emotionally charged confrontations. One of the best scenes is when Janet forces Neil to sit down and talk to his kids before he goes on a mission that he could very well not return from.

The cast is good, and I liked Corey Stoll as the annoying know-it-all, Buzz Aldrin who was Neil’s second on the historical mission. From an educational standpoint, I do believe “First Man” is an important film and if you wanted to educate someone on who Neil Armstrong was, I can’t think of a better film out there to do that. Despite my issues with “First Man”, I do feel that the film would work well as an educational tool and should be shown in schools. It really does focus on the type of training  men had to endure to become astronauts . I may have been more entertained by 1995’s “Apollo 13”, but “First Man” does feel much more authentic.

By: Marc Ferman