Human kinds travel to the Moon is one of the greatest achievements in American history that deserves a better movie than this. A fantastical and awe-inspiring story about what humanity is capable of has been aggressively bogged down by wrong-headed creative choices, pretentious technical aspects, and a leading man who has mysteriously chosen to suppress his greater emotional range in favor of constant robotic scowling. The Moon landing is an extraordinary story of human achievement that needs to be told to all future generations so they may always remember that we are indeed capable of great things, and this movie had the opportunity to be that very spark of inspiration for this generation. Instead, it's a dull and depressing slog of a film prevented from being this year's worst movie solely by the release Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom this past Summer.
The story follows the late Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) on his journey that would eventually lead to him becoming the first man to walk on the Moon, and that's just about all there is to say about the story. While the efforts of NASA to beat the Russians to the Moon is the main plot that drives the narrative, the film can't decide how much time it wants to spend on that. The film gives the impression that it wants to be more of a character study on Neil Armstrong as it spends most of the runtime with him and his family, including an almost forgotten subplot about the death of his young daughter, but nothing in the script gives the characters or the audience any amount of texture to work with. I understand the idea was likely to want to explore what kind of a man Mr. Armstrong was before he landed on the Moon, but there isn't anything in the film to make his identity engaging. He's just a bland, robotic avatar to move the plot along.
One of the more baffling creative choices this film makes is with its cinematography. Specifically, its decisions in camera angles and aspect ratio. About 90% of the movie is in close up and extreme close-ups mostly of people's faces. The camera is shaky, has no sense of composition, and every shot feels like it's being improvised. This is an attempt to make the scene feel more "real," but all it does is make everything painful to watch. This style of shooting is made further difficult to tolerate by the film's choice of aspect ratio. For those of you who don't know, aspect ratio refers to the black bars you see on the top and bottom of the frame. Most Hollywood movies are shot in a ratio of 2.35, which is broad, narrow and rectangular, while other films are shot in a ratio of 1.85, with is taller and more open. Take a look at the image below for a visual representation.
When shooting a large number of close-ups, especially on human faces, it is usually best to use the 1.85 aspect ratio, as that feels more natural and allows the performer ample space to play around in. First Man chooses to shoot the entire movie in close-ups (which by the way are all incredibly shaky and jittery) in the 2.35 aspect ratio. As a result, the whole film is just painful to look at and impossible to comprehend. While the lighting is decent and actually pretty in some spots, which is about the only positive thing I can say about the cinematography, it is overshadowed by every other unwise choice made. I am aware that the ratio changes in the films IMAX presentation for some of the scenes, but I did not see this film in IMAX and thus cannot comment on it.
Then there's the non-existent performance from Ryan Gosling. I should make it clear that I actually like Mr. Gosling as an actor. He has talent and is capable of portraying a decent amount of range, as demonstrated in the well made comedy Crazy Stupid Love. However, recently Mr. Gosling seems to have chosen to stick with a performance style that is just too robotic, too monotone, and actually scary in places where it really shouldn't be. It's like Mr. Gosling never turned off his performance from the movie Drive.
First Man is not a movie. I'm not sure what it is, but I am confident that it is not really cinema. The best way I can describe it is a collection of poorly shot home movies from NASA strung together by a teenager which was then shoved into theaters hoping to gain high prestige based on the recognition of its subject matter alone. Needless to say, it didn't' work. Stay as far away from this movie as possible, and if it gets nominated for any Oscars this year (which is highly likely), I will be rooting for this movie take home absolutely nothing. Because that is, quite literally, all it left me with.
Is this movie worth seeing?
No.
Is it worth seeing in Theaters?
No.
Why?
It's dull, lifeless, poorly executed, and has no real dramatic or narrative impact of any kind. Skip this one and go see Halloween instead.
Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm, thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment