Excellent & Beautiful

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2018)

Chazelle beautifully takes viewers on an emotional and disorienting journey through the most formidable years of Armstrong's life and the risks these pioneers of space exploration took. If you're looking for an Apollo 13 or Right Stuff experience solely focused on the endevours of NASA and the American triumph in the Cold War space race, you may be disappointed by First Man. This is not a movie about Apollo 11. While Apollo 11 and the journey to the moon are the primary focus of Neil Armstrong's experience in First Man, this movie is instead exactly what Chazelle promises in the choice for the film's title; A biopic on the First Man.
In First Man, we get a glimpse inside the soul and character of Neil Armstrong. Gosling truly nailed it. His portrayal of Armstrong's calm coolness in the face of extreme danger, his quiet and inwardly shy demeanor, and his contemplative stares. Gosling really shines when we see Armstrong's stunted, yet deeply personal emotions, even to the point of appearing cold to the ones closest to him.
The real heart of the movie appears during Armstrong's flight missions on Gemini 8 and Apollo 11. Chazelle does a great job showing the audience how rickety the earliest flying machines were and how limited the astronaut's visual field was. The sounds and shrieks had me on the edge of my seat. The limited space in the space shuttles is claustrophobic and the appearance of the moon as the Apollo 11 space shuttle approaches its surface is as eerie as the actual nasa footage.
This movie was definitely a must see. I've never seen a movie that more accurately depicts the beauty and creepiness the astronauts of the early space shuttle have described.