Technically Brilliant with a few genuinely thrilling scenes but mostly a boring film

Rating: 5/10 (30 November 2018)

Neil Armstrong finally gets a biopic in Damien Chazelle's epic "First Man." Chazelle does justice with a practical, honorable, and accurate account of the Apollo 11 space mission to the Moon. However, the movie did not entertain with its thin characterizations, emotional detachment, suspenseless climax, and very boring family narrative.
"First Man" features some thrilling space scenes which utilizes film stock and IMAX 70mm. If Chazelle decided to use digital and CGI all the special effects, then he would have been left with a POS movie. The space scenes employ shaky cam, and pitch perfect sound design. During the launches, it sounded like the space craft would break apart, adding to the intensity of the scene.
The score by "La La Land" composer Justin Hurwitz was jazzy, musical-like and at times searingly epic. I couldn't help but compare the score to another epic space movie "Interstellar." Justin Hurwitz's music was good but no where near the level of transcendent epicness of Hans Zimmer's score.
"First Man" decided to do something different and focus half the movie on Neil Armstrong's family. The result was a bore-fest. The family drama dragged on and on and really killed the pacing. There was very little characterization for such a stellar cast. Some actors like Corey Stoll, and Kyle Chandler had nothing to do but recite boring exposition. Ryan Gosling's trademark is playing stoic and emotionally reserved men, offering for a perfect casting of a stoic Neil Armstrong. However, Gosling didn't employ that same emotional vulnerability that made him so tantalizing in "The Place Beyond the Pines." Everyone knows how the story of Neil Armstrong and the Moon ends. So it really isn't the movie's fault that the ending is predictable and suspenseless. With that said, the ending did not redeem what felt like 3 hours of soap opera family drama on the hallmark channel.
Stanley Kubrick did a better job directing the moon landing than Damien Chazelle. #MoonLandingFaked. Just kidding.