‘Halloween’ Poised To Topple ‘Venom’s $80M+ October Opening Record (First Man Down 46%)

Deadline ^ | October 20, 2018 | Anthony D'Alessandro

[Larry Lucido]

Does Curtis still play a 40 year old teenager?

[BradyLS]

Saw “First Man” today. Good. Not great. An artfully made B-grade melodrama with five A+ sequences. The opener with Neil in the X-15. Neil in a spin-recovery contraption (you see it in the trailer). Neil with the Agena docking station. Neil in the mock lander (the infamous “flying bedstead”). And Neil landing on the moon.

If you’re a NASA or spaceflight junkie, go ahead and see it. The NASA logo and American flag are not stinted in the movie. You see it at least twice on the Moon. You just don’t get to see it planted.

Best things: the five sequences mentioned. Also, the movie puts you in the cockpits of the X-15, the Gemini, the Apollo Command Module, and the Lunar Module. You definitely get the claustrophobic feeling of being in a spacesuit in phone booth with a blizzard of buttons and one or two tiny windows to see the outside world.

Worst things: you have to know who the players are and know a bit about each of the things I mention above to get the most out of the film. The movie barely tells you who anyone is nor describes the vehicles involved in any but the very slimmest of details. You’ll miss the Agena-Titan launch if you blink.

In this movie, Ryan Gosling was the perfect man to play Armstrong. You come to learn that while Neil may have been the ultimate “steely-eyed missile man”, there’s no doubt he had a heart.

“First Man” is not “Apollo 13: The Prequel.” It’s tone is closer to the middle section of 2001 and the family scenes in Arrival. If you want history with the real players, your movie is called “In the Shadow of the Moon.”