A half baked effort, attempt to focus on a narrow scope fails

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2018)

Its an attempt at a character study, the usual personal tragedy drives the brooding, but there is no depth there. The massive scope of the project to put a man on the moon is barely hinted at, all you see is an attempt at a personal story and it still feels empty, you just see a man brood, as if mystery were enough. The lack of depth extends to the mission portions as well, lots of close up of faces, lots of quick cuts, but no clever illustration of what problems he faced and how he was solving them, you see quick cuts, his face, and random disorientation. Its the shortcut of a story teller who doesn't know how to tell a story and that pretty much sums up the movie.
There are so many missed opportunities, in one scene Neil is in a class learning about his mission, but they show and say almost nothing. Simply showing the physics equations would have told the audience this was no ordinary man, he was aeronautical engineer who could understand such things. These are rudimentary techniques in story telling on film which is why its so perplexing.
Just look at the first scene with the x15, compare it to the first scene of "When we left the earth: The NASA Missions" which covered the very same flight and compare the impact, this films version just pales in comparison to a documentary's edit from a decade ago. "Neil Armstrong X15 - When we left earth." on youtube contains the clip. That 1 minute segment evokes more emotion and understanding than this film does over 2 hours. You are better served watching that well made documentary series than this mess of a film.