Why???

Rating: 4/10 (20 May 2019)

Initially I resisted seeing this movie because of all of the hype surrounding the omission of the planting of the American flag but on a 10 hour flight to Europe with little else to do I caved and finally decided to watch this movie. Sadly, it left me with little to appreciate.
Let me just say that the missing flag scene is hardly the biggest problem with this movie. In fact, it would not really have fit the movie if they had included it. This movie celebrates nothing about Armstrong and the Apollo program so a triumphant scene with him planting the flag would have been severely out of place. Other reviewers who " ..found this refreshing and not your typical Hollywood approach" really miss the larger picture here. The movie's portrayal of Armstrong as dull and lifeless is not only bizarre, it's just plain inaccurate. Armstrong may have been a quiet simple man but he was not the lifeless energy vampire that Gosling makes him out to be. The real Armstrong was still a positive soul despite his passive nature but the movie's version is sad and draining to put it lightly. It also made it too hard to believe that NASA would trust such a morose and disturbed character with such an important technical role.
Look, I can see the artistic value in taking a certain stylized approach to any historical event (see For All Mankind) but First Man is just bizarre. It paints us an empty and soulless picture of the Apollo missions and of those involved. More to the point, I believe it's portrayal of Armstrong is just plain wrong. By the time the movie was over I was left scratching my head wondering why they even made this film at all. What a waste.