First Man

I can’t even lie I am so lazy to write this but I signed myself into this new commitment and I am actually liking the feedback, some people even asked me to write movie reviews for specific movies they like. So the other day I was chatting with my cousin whom I haven’t talked to in a long time so I decided to invite her to go to the movies. She chose the movie “First man” with Ryan Reynolds. She got to the movie theatre earlier than I, I got there late so I asked if she didn’t mind watching another movie or the same one in another theatre. She really wanted to watch that movie so she chooses the latter.

We got there on time for their session, we bought popcorn which I finished half of it even before the movie started. The first scene is a guy in the moon! Duh! The title in Portuguese was “First man in the moon” but I didn’t know they meant it literally, I thought it was a metaphor. My disappointment when I found out the movie was about astronomy, and God knows I hate astronomy. My second disappointment was when I finally realised that it wasn’t Ryan Reynolds but Ryan Gosling.

Ryan Gosling is a good actor. Period! I am not a screenwriter (I hope I will be one day) or a director but I know a few things and that guy is a genius but sometimes you don’t want to see a good actor, you want to see an entertaining actor, which is the almighty Ryan Reynolds. Anyways, Ryan Gosling stole my heart in ‘The Notebook’ that was true love well played, you know that good guy from a struggling background but is educated and has morals and is so determined to get you that he writes you 365 letters. Wow! But how bipolar can you be from playing that character to playing a psychopath in ‘All good things’? How could you treat Rachel Madams like a queen and treat Kristen Dunst like shit?

Let’s finally talk about this movie. I won’t lie I don’t have much to say about this movie because I was on my phone the whole time and bored as hell. You know those people who don’t like something but are grown up to say “I am already here let’s just have a good time”, I am not one of these people. I tried to like the movie but the whole thing about space, space ships, telescopes, physics, chemistry and so on, I really can’t understand. It’s not even that I don’t like it, I don’t understand. You know people always call me smart for writing books and blah blah but I really feel dumb next to physics people. Whatever they do, that is clearly being smart.

Back to the movie, sorry! Ryan lost his daughter to brain cancer, during the funeral and everything he looks okay, then he gets to a room alone and starts screaming like crazy. It’s painful to see his pain. He goes to a meeting with supervisors, I think that’s their names. They call him “Armstrong”. That’s when I finally got it that it is a true story, therefore the movie is a biography, so you know what it means right? It is going to be long like a documentary. I can only give two hours of my time to Spiderman, Black Panther or Gamora. Although Neil Armstrong is definitely a hero because he has to endure his daughter’s death in order to be psychologically okay to go to the moon. He also has Deadpool’s traits, he is a bit funny and definitely bland. He looks like he doesn’t care about anything, like after his daughter’s death there’s nothing for him so the only reason he is alive is to embark on a suicide mission to the moon.

Let’s talk about psychology, usually astronauts need to take certain tests to be capable of going to the moon, they don’t mention anything about psychological test (or they did but I didn’t pay attention) but then again how can you ask someone not to be insane but going to the moon is clearly something insane. For one of the tests, they got inside of something like a space ship and it starts moving like a roll coaster, they need to be inside for a specific time. He manages to complete the time, but then goes to the bathroom to throw up. The movie tries to show us that Armstrong is the best one and perfect fit to go to the moon.

Armstrong and his family, his wife and a boy, moved to Houston, where he is attending the training, along with other astronauts’ families. They become friends, having dinner together often and in a few  scenes laughing and joking around. His wife looks like a lesbian with a good soul. She looks very understanding and strong. So far they look like they have healed and they welcome another son.

One of the astronauts whom Armstrong became friends with, dies in a mission. He gets in a subtle argument with another astronaut in the funeral. It seems as they were discussing who to blame for the accident. Later, Armstrong goes on mission and there was a technical issue and he is forced to abort the mission and safely reach earth. Armstrong is evidently someone who stands out from the crew, hence, he is called to represent NASA at the White House. While he is there looking all sharp, his crew was doing another test and unfortunately a fire incident happens and they were killed. Armstrong learn the news while attending the event and you can tell that he felt like that should have been him.

The whole movie is just showing Armstrong as this lucky guy who is able to complete every task while the other members of his crew are dying. And it makes you ask yourself what is the point of going to the moon? You have a good wife who supports you and two beautiful sons, so what’s the point? Is it money? As you watch it; the perfect soundtrack helps you understand that now he is doing it for his late friends and his daughter. You can tell that he is an emotional guy and all these deaths really affected him.

He is called for apparently a major mission which everyone believe will be finally the moon landing. His wife finally speaks up against it, the whole time it looked like she didn’t agree but she supported him. We see that Armstrong is a very distant person and not communicative at all. She starts screaming for answers and he doesn’t look like he wants to be engaged. She asks him “What are the chances that you are not coming back?” and geez lady, even I know the answer. She begs him to at least have a conversation with their children since other families lost their fathers. Still, his mind is made up. He successfully arrives in the moon, he is there walking, the moon is greyish or whitish and there’s nothing there. Just the so wanted moon! He leaves his daughter bracelet there, showing that he did it for her. He comes back to earth alive and he lives happily ever after with his wife.

I am not sure what to say about this movie. The audio-visual quality was out of this world (moon levels) I think it was a nice movie but kinda boring. I liked getting in depth information about him and ArmSTRONG is surely a name that tells you that this person is going to the moon.