An amazing story in search of a motion picture home - The story's still searching.

Rating: 1/10 (20 October 2018)

I was 12 when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, and witnessing that moment in history was transformative for me. I spent the next 50 years writing professionally about, among other topics, space exploration and manned space flight for numerous publications. That's why I was so excited when I heard about this movie being made. I was hoping that, not since Tom Hanks' superlative HBO mini-series, "From the Earth to the Moon," Hollywood would tell one of the most incredible stories of modern day bravery and scientific accomplishment in a manner and on a scale it deserves.
I'm still waiting. "First Man," is little more than a series of barely connected vignettes in Neil Armstrong's life. There is no dramatic narrative to speak of in the film, and nothing that conveys the daunting nature or shear human magnitude of the race to the Moon in the 1960s. As portrayed by Ryan Gosling, the part of Neil Armstrong is a virtually nonspeaking role. He's perpetually morose, and has a range of facial expressions running the gamete from blank to slightly frowny. If you walk into the movie theater with little or no foreknowledge about Neil Armstrong or the early space program, you will leave in virtually the same condition. You will have learned nothing about how or why the early astronauts were such unique individuals, let alone how they were required to meet nearly impossible standards of training, expertise and experience to even be allowed to apply for the job. Your ignorance will go undisturbed about the substantial sacrifices made by members of the astronaut corps and their families - and by the thousands of scientists, engineers and others who contributed the entirety of their personal and professional lives - to make real the dream of the, "giant leap for mankind," given voice to by a martyred president in 1961.
You will also gain scant, if any, insight into what it meant to nearly every American and billions of people around the world, that humans had set foot on another celestial body. The degree and nature of how it changed - and could have changed - both Neil Armstrong's life and individuals everywhere, also didn't make it into the movie, either. In short, "First Man," is an empty spacesuit of a movie more notable for all of the elements of good storytelling and honest humanity that are absent from it. Leap giantly right over it and watch any of the many better cinematic treatments of the subject.