First Man - Review

First Man

Director Damien Chazelle has the unique distinction of being the youngest person to ever win the Oscar for Best Director (La La Land). In the short span of three films to his credit, two of "Whiplash" and "La La Land" have together garnered a total of 18 Oscar nominations, two of which included Best Picture nominations.  Its my opinion he is certain to add more Oscar Academy Award Nominations accolades to his resume in the biopic story of Astronaut Neil Armstrong starring Ryan Gosling as Armstrong in the film "First Man".

Now, unless you have been in a cave for the past half century or refuse to learn any elementary basic American history or just take some illogical pride in being willfully ignorant, Neil Armstrong was a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the United States Navy when he was selected by NASA in the late 1960’s to command a space mission to the first landing on the moon.

On July 16th, 1969 three Astronauts Neil, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins left earth in a fiery blast off in their orbiter spacecraft named "Apollo 11"  to fly 240,000 miles to hopefully land on the moon. Three and half days later they arrive to orbit the Moon where they fired the main rocket of their command orbiter to slow down to obtain a stable lunar orbit. Shortly there after Neil (Pilot) and Co-pilot Buzz Aldrin crawled inside the attached - separating lunar lander named “American Eagle”  that had the metal strength and thickness of a typical soda can to slowly descend to landing on the moon's surface. Once there both men (Neil first) walked on the surface taking picture and picking of samples of lunar rocks. After only 21 hours, 36 minutes on the lunar surface they re-launch the upper accent stage of the "American Eagle" lander to re-dock with the orbiting command module "Apollo 11" . Again  they fired the main engine rocket of the command orbiter only to regain enough velocity speed to escaping the moon’s gravity for their 240,000 miles 3 day return flight home. Eight days after leaving earth the three astronauts have returned in their remaining pyramid shaped Apollo 11 capsule reentering the earth's atmosphere at 17,500 mph with the ships outer surface temperature reaching 3000 degrees Fahrenheit to safely parachuting in the Pacific Ocean.

Think of it. Commander Neil Armstrong was only 39 years old when he accomplished this amazing feat using calculations with only pencil and paper, in the moment human ingenuity and an on-board computer system that by today's standard had less software capability than a $10 drugs store calculator.

The story of “First Man” tells the riveting story of that NASA’s mission noted above to landing a man on the moon, focusing primarily on Neil Armstrong and his NASA years from 1961 to 1969. A visceral first-person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen that taps into the extraordinary personal sacrifices, costs and deep fears that for its time was singularly the most dangerous mission of human exploration in history.

REVIEW:  "First Man" is a powerfully poignant and harrowing film that both exhilarates and also at times teeters on the fringe of horrifying in the life and death struggles of many brave individuals and their families, at great personal sacrifice for their collective, single minded and dogged determination to landing on the moon.  BUT TO BE CLEAR - MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, the entire film is in fact an introspective examination of Neil Armstrong; the man, the husband, the father, the astronaut and reluctant American icon and hero.

Ryan Gosling is perfectly cast as Neil, surprisingly capturing a personality trait that I do not make light of here to the fictional “Star Trek Mr. Spock”.  Specifically, both Neil and Spock seem to eerily share similar stoic exactness in their interactions with other people, of always having a concise need for discipline in everything and their surroundings and ultimately having an unfettered reliance for logic as the only absolute in life.

This real life harden impassive trait of Neil’s made similar to the fictional Spock in that they both chose “not to feel”  even while emotional turmoil raged underneath. This real life aspect to Armstrong's personality was probably the result two events seen early in the film. First being where we see Neil narrowly escaping death flying the experimental X-15 rocket that accidentally went sub-orbital. And secondly the sudden tragic loss of his infant daughter. Both experiences not only transformed an already highly intelligent, skilled and focused pilot, it clearly transfixed him. Transfixed him to the point of Neil seemingly operated almost non-human with steely human calmness and human respect.

Director Damien Chazelle directing is simply phenomenal here (I have used that word two weeks in a row) now. And just like James Cameron’s "Titanic", he doesn’t just want the viewer to see the events of his story on the screen, he wants you to live it with some amazing special effects that literally was like being a fly on the wall (inside movie joke here).  You get to experience what it must have been like first hand early space flight. From his near death experience with the X -15 spacecraft. The almost disastrous breakup of his Gemini 8. The loud sounds of metal stretching and screeching from stress. The dizzying launching and moon landing itself, through all of it you see just how exceptionally brave these people were to climb in the raw bare bones constructed equipment they flew in.  Looking retrospectively here, their ships looked more like two metal bath tubs held together by barbwire, Elmer's glue, gray packing tape and way too many not so secured metal rivets perpetually almost shaking lose. It is beyond astonishing to me that there were not many more lives lost in the early years of the NASA program. One side note you can tell the film used real antique mock versions of the original ships in that the switches in the film, the walls and numerous levers looked slightly rusted and worn.

"First Man" captures the many nauseating, relentless shaking, nerve racking and rattling sensations of some unknown catastrophe that was on the precipice of happening "right now".  But what was made even more abundantly clear was during these many dangerous moments the uncanny discipline of Neil Armstrong to almost will himself past those circumstance, devoid of having any human fear. He seemed less to look at death in the eye and more inclined to look ignorantly around. To the point I believe 99% of any other well trained pilots back then would have predictably passed out from the G forces levels Neil experienced..............He did not. He simply refuse to.

Structurally, while the film has a somber, melancholy and quiet feel about it, it also l has the resonance of an action film as well, all the while building up to the historical crescendo of the actual landing on the moon. And while I know factually how close Astronauts Neil and Buzz came to crashing on July 20^th 1969,  watching  Director Damien Chazelle astonishingly re-imagine both visually and technically that famous accomplishment gave me a real tense knot in my stomach with chills on my arms during the landing sequence.

Shot in digital black and white the way you see the lunar landscape slowly coming into horizontal view while Armstrong simultaneously goes about flying the lander, looking out the window, reading computer data and pushing buttons. Responding back to Mission Control on the flight status with technically coded wording. You seeing him seeing quickly the pre-programmed landing site filled with hazardous boulders and jagged crates. Seeing him making that split second decision to manually fly the ship elsewhere. The endless flashing lights going on and off. A large red signal display showing rapidly depleting fuel. Multiple loud alarms going off,  “1201” and “1202” that the on board computers are overloaded, crashing because they unable to process all of the speed, pitch and yaw, altitude telemetry flight data ............"time to abort"  …………..AND YET, AND YET, you see up close, very intimately, to the point of almost being inside Neil’s protective visor itself, Armstrong eyes confidently dancing back and forth, processing all of this activity; again "transfixed” with a heighten determination to remaining calm, remaining focused to his eventual safe and soft landing on the moon………………….With only 15 seconds of fuel left to spare. This scene alone is climatically amazing with real white knuckled spine tingling direction and acting from both Chazelle and Gosling here.  It literally is worth the price of admission alone in its 2:20 minute running time.

“First Man” is an absolute in the theater experience. Brilliantly told and stunning to look at, it claustrophobically puts you in the cold sometimes noisy and sometimes quiet confining front seat of dangerous space travel. Its also singularly showcases an extraordinarily brave man and his extraordinary achievement. A sweeping, mature, sober and contemplative look at a truly reluctant American hero. 

"First Man" is a serious nip and tuck contender with " A Star is Born" as the best film for 2018.

4.00 Stars