A well-made biopic of a fascinating man, and the vanguard of the era of movies that just happen to be set in space.

Rating: 9/10 (18 October 2018)

Almost a Review of First Man
When the movie Gravity came out a few years ago, interesting conversations were had about what sort of movie it was. It was about spaceships doing spaceship things, which would generally make it science fiction, but all the spaceships were real, and science fiction uses involves made up things.* I looked forward to seeing that trend grow - the idea that space was just another place that a movie could be set.
Exhibit A: First Man.
As apparently must be mentioned in any discussion of First Man, this movie is not The Right Stuff or Apollo 13.
Those were space movies. This is a movie set partially in space.
Specifically, it's a family drama - an intimate and personal portrait of a family; a family in which the dad has a rather unusual day job. A day job which involves the movie being set partially in space. Because everyone works somewhere, and sometimes that work involves travel.
I came out of watching First Man the first time, and immediately starting discussing it with the person I watched it with. My immediate reaction - I'm still processing. Honestly, that was still largely true a week later when I saw it again.
I'd had this sense that First Man wasn't going to be what a lot of people thought it was going to be, but it wasn't anything I thought it would be, either.
The story of the Armstrongs unfolds in a way that is deeply personal and unflinching; the story it tells and the way it is told mesh deftly - every intricacy of how the movie is shot tells its story.
I'll admit I have mixed feelings about the subject - Having had the opportunity to meet and talk with Apollo astronauts, to get to know them as people, I made the decision that I wanted Neil Armstrong to stay larger than life for me, more legend than human. The Neil Armstrong in this movie is very human; but while it's largely exhaustive in its pursuit of accuracy, there are a few moments of speculation that shift it back into the status of legend, growing and changing in each retelling.
The result of my processing is this - I really like the movie for what it is; a well-made biopic of a fascinating man, and the vanguard of the era of movies that just happen to be set in space.
And for space just happening to the setting, the space part is done as well as, if not better than, any movie before it. The space scenes here aren't sexy or glamorous; they're realistic in a way I don't think I've seen before, and all the more powerful for it. I strongly suspect this movie captures what it was like to actually ride in these vehicles in a way that's never been done before.
I almost hate to acknowledge it, but even just this week I've had people bring up the flag-planting controversy, and I've seen speculation it hurt the box office. Yes, it's true that you see the flag on the moon without seeing the frankly anticlimactic moment its planted, but that's missing the point. The sad irony is that unfair criticism are keeping people from watching what is almost certainly one of this year's movies that most celebrates America.
With the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 now less than a year away, First Man makes a half-century old story fresh enough to inspire in a new era of exploration.
*Of course, the orbital mechanics in Gravity were science that was fiction, but I'm actually on the side of the filmmakers on that one.