Review: FIRST MAN

Release Date: Malaysia, 18 Oct 2018

Genre: Drama / Adventure

Running Length: 2:21

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll

Director: Damien Chazelle 

Screenplay: Josh Singer, based on "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James Hansen 

What's this movie about?
FIRST MAN follows the story of astronaut Neil Armstrong on his journey to become the first man to walk on the moon in 1969.

Not only it focuses on the years leading up to that historical moment, this film also offers an intimate behind-the-scenes on his relationship with his family and what goes through his mind.

Highlights and Lowlights
Despite being a film about space adventure, I'm so glad the filmmakers didn't turn this into a special effects-loaded production. Most of the "space" scenes are from the POV of the astronauts inside the ship. And wow, David Bowie singing "Am I sitting in a tin can" in Space Oddity really rang true for those sequences!

And the moon scene is truly jaw-dropping.

In summary

Damien Chazelle's Whiplash left me breathless and it was one of the highest rated films of 2015 for me. His follow-up La La Land - man, the final act sucker punched me in the gut.

So it was with great anticipation I had for FIRST MAN, his third film. But somehow, the experience left me...emotionally detached.

I couldn't figure out what's wrong because this is a very accomplished film with good performances and technical achievement. Thus, I concluded that "it's not you, it's me". I am the problem. (Perhaps it's because I have never had any interest in the space race or even astronomy.)

That said, at least this movie sparked off some kind of interest to find out more about the Cold War. 

RATING: 7/10

ANT-MAN (2015)

 
Genre: Action/Science fiction
Running Length: 1:57
Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Peña, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, T.I., David Dastmalchian
Director: Peyton Reed
Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, Paul Rudd

Marvel's ANT-MAN is a tight and smaller scale movie (see what I just did there...) compared to the other epic and god-like superhero movies. And it packs a lot of heart too. In fact, it seems to share the same template as last year's surprise hit Guardians of the Galaxy:

• It goes for fun over dark brooding drama. 
• It's bright and uses a similar bold color palette. 
• Just like Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd is a likeable and humorous hero (heck, there's even a similar ripped six pack abs side profile shot of the actors in their respective movie trailers)      

I was a little skeptical when I watched the first trailer and not knowing much about the comic book, I thought the name "Ant-Man" was a tad too goofy. But boy was I wrong! The ability to shrink to a size of an insect is actually brilliant and lethal at the same time. The idea is so dangerous that if this technology falls into the hands of the wrong people, it would have serious global consequences. And that's actually the premise of the movie; to break into a high security premise to steal and destroy this technology before our main villain sells it to a bigger bad-der organization. Think of it like the Ocean's Eleven heist of Marvel movies.

What worked in this movie is its great cast. Rudd's comic timing is perfect and he's generally a nice guy who's trying to do the right thing for his daughter. Evangeline Lilly gets me everytime whenever she plays a strong character with scenes where she breaks down emotionally. Michael Pena steals every scene he’s in. And of course, there's Michael Douglas. He still has charisma and he oozes personality. And the action scenes are never too loud and bombastic. The climatic fight scene between Ant-Man and the baddie is ingenious as it switches between their perspective and that of normal-size human scale (and it also involves Thomas The Tank Engine Train). And kudos to the effective use of effects. When our hero shrinks down to size, his surroundings look unbelievably detailed and real.

Indeed, less is more.

Rating: 7.5/10

DARK PLACES (2015)

Genre: Thriller
Running Length:1:43
Cast: Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Chloe Grace Moretz, Corey Stoll, Christina Hendricks
Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Screenplay: Gilles Paquet-Brenner, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn.

"The hardest prison to escape is in your mind."

If only DARK PLACES explored the angle of the psychological trauma of guilt and lies have on its characters, this movie could have been a far more satisfying cinematic experience. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad movie but it's not very good either. Blame it on today's abundance of solid crime thriller stories available on TV, this film appears surprisingly tame for the big screen (perhaps this is why it has not gotten a domestic release date in the U.S.). Dark Places is told from the first person (Theron), one of two known survivors of a family massacre that took place in 1985 on the family farm in rural Kansas. In present day, she's compelled to revisit the demons of her childhood to find out whether her then teenage brother (the other survivor who's serving life time in jail for his crime) actually killed their mother and two other siblings. As the movie unfolded, it kept me guessing but when the end credits rolled, I just felt it was a missed opportunity. Gillian Flynn’s second adaptation (first being Gone Girl) to the silver screen has all the raw ingredients of a great film; satanic cults, twisted family secrets, obsessions, lies, selflessness, young lust and serial killings and it has the very dependable Charlize Theron - but it just turned out to be an average motion picture. Perhaps it lacked atmosphere and a dark soundtrack. Perhaps the director is not an actor's director. Perhaps it's the screenplay. Whatever it is, just imagine what David Fincher could have done with a setup like that. There are a dime a dozen of whodunits stories out there in both the small and big screen, but there are not many which examine the issues of guilt, innocence and lies that keep its characters locked-up not in physical prison cells but in the prison of their mind.      

Rating: 6.5/10