Awful. Garbage.

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2019)

"First Man" is sadly, awful. First Man made our space program and successful flight to the moon, seem like a waste of money, time, and a dark time for our country. From the direction to the story line to the cinematography to the sound, to the music, to the editing. It was a barf-a-rama. I am proud of this country's space program, and I could say that Neil Armstrong is not just a hero to me, who at the age of 10, was left speechless at seeing Mr. Armstrong walk on the moon, but a hero to so many men and women who followed in his footsteps to go where few have gone before, and hopefully will go again. The director, Damien Chazelle, took a story of an amazing man, a hero, and one of the proudest moments in American history, and turned it in to a dark and dismal film. There was a darkness throughout the film. There were very few happy moments. Deaths, protests, and little joy or jubilation. Even on the moon, Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) appeared sad. One of the greatest triumphs of man's ingenuity was reduced to blah. The direction was all over the place. I worked in the Directors Guild of American (DGA) for 5 years in the early 1980s. Not only did get to meet some of the greatest directors in film history, Stanley Kubrick, Frank Capra, Warren Beatty, Elliot Silverstein, I also attended most of the special projects films at the DGA and premieres, including The Right Stuff (a movie I've seen 20 plus times), where I not only met the director, Philip Kaufman, but also meat Chuck Yeager who was there signing The Right Stuff books. I also loved Apollo 13, a master piece of direction by Ron Howard. I am sure many of the greatest directors in Hollywood who have passed, are turning in their graves. This movie war pure garbage, and an insult to Mr. Armstrong's heroic walk on the moon and his legacy. I gave it one star, but it really deserves a negative star.