My Review of "First Man"

First Man wasn't a movie that I thought I'd enjoy. Space exploration movies have done well in the past but I'm always late to check them out. All we know about Neil Armstrong is that he was the first man to walk on the moon. Surprisingly this movie isn't really about space exploration. It's about his journey to get to the moon.

One would think that they were going to base the story on him preparing to go to space and they do for a bit. This movie really analyzes the mental fortitude that Neil had to get to the moon. There are a ton of turmoil and grief and it all starts with him in a plane.

The plane is basically blasting off into the earth's atmosphere. He starts to go up too high and is starting to lift into space. Panicked, he had to think of the right thing to do in order to get himself back to earth. I'm sure many of us would have been lost into space if we were in the same situation as him.

This is just one of the many examples of what kind of guy Neil is in this movie. He's put through the ringer physically and mentally throughout the movie.

One of the things that I didn't know was that he had lost his young daughter to cancer. It's an emotional moment that doesn't really go away throughout the movie. We later find out that he's lost a lot of good friends due to flying incidents.

In the 1960's I'm sure men had to adhere to a certain masculine facade when going through such a terrible things. It's interesting because technically the 1960's wasn't that long ago. Men really did keep a lot of things to themselves and in this case Neil focused on this work rather than facing the problems with his mental health.

We see this heavy burden not only affects himself but his friends and especially his family. He's lucky that he had such a wonderful understanding wife, Janet. She's pretty much the rock that holds their family together and pretty much takes the brunt of all of Neil's antics.

This movie really makes you rethink about a lot of the heroes that we revere throughout history. They have to have had issues just as Neil did. We paint a glossy picture of these people but we don't see the ugly that they had to face in order to get to their achievements.

I loved how this movie painted all of the characters as multidimensional characters. They all mean well but they all have serious downsides to their personalities. We see the many flaws in everyone and especially NASA as an organization.

There are many situations where I thought that I would have left the program if all of those things had happened. Still these astronauts persevered and continued to push like soldiers. Even the spaceship that they were in seemed like it could have broken down any second.

It's funny how I already knew the outcome of the story but still felt the fear that the astronauts had felt when they were being blasted up to the moon. We all know the outcome of the moon mission but the movie did a good job to explain why the mission was so scary.

Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable movie. There are some slow points because it's an exploration of Neil's emotions throughout his journey. Some people will be put off with this but I found it fascinating. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. It's a good character exploration but I admit it won't be for everyone. Still, I say it's worth seeing at least once.