One Small Step For Man…. One Giant Leap For Film Kind….

Oh dont roll your eyes you were all expecting that to be the opening line of this review if you were expecting anything else i have seriously misjudged you.

By now you’ve all read about my struggles with my odeon cinema & how it’s been shut & there is no idea or full on explanation as to why it was shut with no warning so I’m not going to go into that. This did mean that I had to take pops popcorn else where to see first man. So we went to the dome for for a Saturday early evening showing because why not.

I’d say cinema was 70% full which is pretty darn good for full dome prices not bad at all. Proper mixed age demographic as well from teens to oldies. Proof this film will carry weight.

Trailers we had bohemian rhapsody of course, fantastic beasts, the nutcracker & something else but I can’t remember it wasn’t widows or venom it wasn’t Poppins either what the hell was it oh well.

& then the film started… & it’s so odd all these Oscar front runners are here now & not in February is it.

I recently said while watching King of Thieves that maybe knowing what happened to well ruined it for me, this film had the opposite effect entirely. Knowing full on that (this isn’t a spoiler it fucking happened people) that they get to the moon I was sitting there watching it going wtf how does this work. You know my phone I’m typing this review on has more technology than that rocket did & yet I can’t call my sister 15miles away as I don’t have the right WiFi, but send it to the moon sure. But yea I sat there going nah they don’t do this even tho I knew fully well that they did.

I knew quite a bit about this & that Apollo 1 everyone died on but I had no idea it didn’t actually leave earth at all. That made me go oh god & then go home & goggle the shit out of it to see what happened.

Gosling was amazing as always this is probably his better shot at an Oscar than LaLa Land (it’s still going to bale tho right?) you could tell the determination & drive & focus in his performance had to match that of Armstrong’s going to the moon. The man needs an award for it he won’t get one but he should get huge kudos for it.

I have a question about Clare Foy, she’s a good actress & is really good in this & everything, but why does her face even when she’s being her normal self or being happy look fucking miserable all the time? Seriously look at her. Yes this is a very emotional subject but look at all of her other work & tell me when she has been genuinely happy at any point. It does my head in . Sorry Clare but it’s true.

The rest of the casting is spot on & perfect. It really was everyone was nailed on no one didn’t deserve their place in this film.

The cinematography in this film was lush. That’s the only way to put it. Emotional might cover it too. That 360 after he moves his foot when he’s on the moon that goes back to his helmet with no reflection & you see the curvature of the earth, that made me cry. It’s just so beautiful & they should all be very proud of those 20 seconds of film. Find me something more beautiful from this year people I dare you.

& then that bit afterwards where buzz is just walking off into the moon & Neil is with the bracelet. Yeah that got me . I’m crying now typing about it, mainly because as he did it I grabbed my dads knee for support & comfort of my own from him only to find his hand on mine & him trying not cry himself which he failed at.

I like the fact that after the iconic line we hardly hear anyone else speak for the rest of the film really. It just puts everything you know into perspective & you just sit there in awe & think.

This is a triumph it really is. It’s a brilliant documentation of what happened & is a proper work of art & heart breaking loving story which actually happened. It should be on a short list come February.

I just want to say one more thing about space travel before I end this review. We saw this in the cinema the week the failed mission to the space station went up which everyone managed to survive from. One of our  own (no seriously he’s 30mins down the road) Tim Peake went up into space & spent 6 months on the space station, & had to go through so much to get there, all because of the people in this film who basically gave up their lives even the ones who made it, to get to the moon. So next time you get your notification to say the space station is over your house tonight or their is a a rare moon go look at it or wave. If it want for these guys in this film the night sky wouldn’t be any where near as beautiful.