Jeff (91/100): While ‘First Man’ might lack the dramatic punch everyone expected, its stunning visuals, technical aspects, and awe-inspiring practical effects make it an incredible in-theater experience. Damien Chazelle’s space scenes are a master-class in grit, realism and tension and some of the best in cinematic history. A fantastic movie, the lack of emotional connection to its main character is the difference between it being a great movie and the year’s best.

You truly have to see this movie in IMAX. Without IMAX, it’s a solid movie, but it was shot with a vision that was meant to be seen on an IMAX (or Dolby) screen. For much of the movie, the story plays out on regular film with a bit of an old-school quality to its images. Once we hit the space scenes, the screen expands to its full IMAX format and dazzles with a crisp picture and some of the greatest practical effects you will ever see. I don’t think it is a stretch to say this is the best the moon has ever looked in a movie. Chazelle makes sure you get the most realistic and horrifying space travel experience as possible with the use of tight shots and a hand-held shaking camera. When it comes to action scenes, shaky-cam is terrible, but the technique is used perfectly in ‘First Man’.

The acting performances in ‘First Man’ are all great, especially Claire Foy, but the emotional weight just isn’t what it should be for this movie. In the lead up to its release, I was led to believe this was going to be more of a biographical drama, but, instead, it was a fairly cookie-cutter biopic when it came to the character elements of the story. Ryan Gosling (the GosGod) does a great job at portraying Neil Armstrong, but his stoic and calm performance (I am now the 1,000th person to use this word for him and ‘First Man’ in a review) sort of walls off any connection you can have to the character. Something just feels missing with the characters in ‘First Man’, even though the story and script do a good job at shedding light on how the perils of space travel can impact not only the astronaut but their loved ones as well.

I really liked this movie, even though there were clear faults with some of its components. Damien Chazelle is clearly one of the best minds in Hollywood and I can’t wait for what he pumps out next onto the big screen. For months, I thought this would be the slam-dunk Best Picture front-runner for the Oscars. I was more excited for this movie than anything that was to be released this year. While it will get a ton of nominations, it is unlikely to take home that award it appears. Even so, ‘First Man’ is one of the Top 10 to 15 movies of 2018.

NOTE: There are a lot of scenes with the American flag. I am glad that full-diaper internet debate waged on a few months ago.

KenJac (90/100): This was a movie that I fear I put too much of a burden on because of the Damien Chazelle & Ryan Gosling team up because I left slightly disappointed that I didn’t really connect with the movie. Even after I tempered my expectations following the initial reactions, I still think they just never made it engaging enough for what you might expect from a biographical-drama. That all said, it was still a stunning, beautifully shot movie that accurately told one of the most interesting stories in human history.

Ryan Gosling (‘Blade Runner: 2049’) may have done the best portrayal of Neil Armstrong ever done, but it was just uninteresting. It felt like he was essentially doing his emotionless android routine from ‘Blade Runner: 2049’ and ‘Drive’. Him being boring wouldn’t really matter if he wasn’t taking up the lion’s share of the screen time while simultaneously saying basically nothing. Claire Foy (‘The Crown’) gave the best performance of the movie, in my opinion, showing the despair of their family situation to the anxiety of Neil’s job with tremendous skill.

This was shot beautifully, with some of the most authentic looking set pieces I have ever seen. Chazelle didn’t go overboard with zero-G sequences, which is sometimes the mark of a lazy space movie, and instead focused more on the astronauts and their reactions to the situations they were presented. The rocket launch sequences, particularly for Gemini 8, were stunning in IMAX. It felt like you were really there, sharing the anxieties of the crew as shit started to go sideways. The actual Moon was also incredible, and the Lunar landing sequence will get your heart rate racing with the combination of ambient noise and an incredible soundtrack.

Overall, I liked the pacing and found it to be an interesting technical display of an incredible achievement for humankind, but it just never really engages you like I felt it should. I understand not wanting to make compromises in a portrayal of his life, but they also did make compromises in that area elsewhere including a very groaning moment following the landing. A big deal has been made by people over the fact that they don’t show the planting of the flag on the moon. The one thing I’ll note is that the moon landing was a distinctive human achievement. Reducing it to nationalism is basically the reason we haven’t made further strides in space exploration since that point. Plus, you still see the fucking flag anyway, so what is there even to bitch about? Did you want a space marine from Warhammer 40,000 to plant it while eating a slice of apple pie?

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This movie is Officially Buttered with Trillballins’ score, set to be revealed this Thursday on the podcast, still to come. Make sure to subscribe to Lights, Camera, Barstool where we will review ‘First Man’ and ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’. Make sure to rate all 2018 movies below.

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