Boil It Down: A standard movie of the week which does nothing to shed new light on the historic Apollo 11 space mission.
Moonshot is a movie of the week for History (formerly The History Channel), though it may be more correctly called a docudrama, combining archival footage of the Apollo 11 spaceflight with a scripted dramatic storyline based on true events. Here, man's first steps on the Moon are chronicled with Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum James Marsters playing Buzz Aldrin, Daniel Lapaine (Last Chane Harvey) as Neil Armstrong and Andrew Lincoln (TV's Wuthering Heights) as Michael Collins, the flight crew for the historic 1969 space flight. While the cast and crew do the best with the material, Moonshot is much too similar to Apollo 13 for the audience to gain any meaningful understanding about this mission. The aspects of the flight it should be interested in exploring for the History audience-why a door won't open on the lunar module, for instance-are glossed over in an effort to make the production appeal to a wider audience base.
Using either the terms "movie of the week" or "docudrama" is not meant to disparage Moonshot. Rather, it's meant to be a descriptor. And by using those terms, it speaks very quickly to what a viewer might find on the disc. The first half deals almost exclusively with the various personalities at work and the way they bump heads trying to get the mission off the ground. At roughly the half-way mark, Apollo 11 gets launched into space, resulting in a seemingly endless array of shots of the three men looking outside the various windows at the expanse of space. Interestingly enough, the human story-the one which includes wives, children and everyone back on Earth-is nearly lost in favor of the mission. That's where Moonshot tends to fall in on itself, relying on three men to carry the drama without a whole lot of support. What made the latter portions of Apollo 13 and Deep Impact (both astronaut films) work as well as they did was the constant cutting back and forth between the shuttle and the ground, giving perspective on the mission from all possible sides.
This production does, to its credit, cut to stock footage from the real Mission Control with voiceovers of audio captured in the room. Controllers checking off a various instruments or providing instruction to the crew helps lend an air of authenticity to Moonshot; we're just never given recreated reactions to the spacewalk from the ground. Why is that important? Well, for one thing, it feels more than a little cheap, as if History couldn't afford the actors and sets to provide a secondary storyline for the film. It's entirely possible the money was there and the filmmakers simply wanted to incorporate as much real footage as they could into the finished product. This is undoubtedly a calculated move to boost Moonshot's authenticity. The unintended effect, though, is a narrative storyline dependent on three people.
Marsters, Lapiane and Lincoln present no problems holding down the fort, so to speak. They're not given much to do besides spouting lines about doing what's best for the mission or other platitudes, but they aren't so jarringly out of place as to destroy the film either. Each is low-key, determined not to ruffle any feathers or stray too far from the historical portraits of the men they portray. The result is a lot of people talking about a lot of concepts, none of which they seem terribly enthusiastic about. All Aldrin can keep repeating is he only cares about what's best for the mission, when asked about a potential controversy surrounding who will be the first man to step foot on the Moon. There's no emotion there, even when he calls his father with his assignment news. Surely knowing you're going into space (even for a second time) and participating in a historic moment generates some sort of excitement. It's hard to buy, even for a minute, that the real-world participants didn't hoot and holler, jump up and down and experience wild euphoria. If they did, Moonshot doesn't portray it. I can't help but feel the "drama" part of docudrama was purposely filtered down to make Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins more heroic. The real Aldrin bookends the feature, saying some of the events are shown exactly as they happened while others have been made up. Yeah, we can tell.
There's no punch, so to speak, in Moonshot, nothing the narrative actually builds to, no payoff for the character or the audience. We know this story so very well by now, the movie has to bring something new to the table. Whether it's a bombastic score, some new revelation about the mission or out of this world special effects (no pun intended), the audience has to be given a reason to watch. When the shuttle blasts off, there isn't a sense of accomplishment. As Neil Armstrong touches down on the lunar surface, it's as if director Richard Dale is just documenting the event rather than recreating it. This is the pinnacle of the mission, what a great number of people have worked towards for a very long time. A historic moment. Moonshot handles it as if Armstrong was going down the street to get a gallon of milk. Perhaps the idea is to not sensationalize history and just recreate it; Moonshot isn't helped by the the decision, resulting in a dull hour and a half.
(Which isn't to say the film needed more explosions, nudity or cursing. What it needed was for the truly monumental portions to be treated as such.)
Tony Basgallop's script runs headlong through everything the History audience could possibly be interested in such as technical discussions and all the previous missions. Moonshot distills husband/wife relationships, family dynamics, NASA history and space flight factoids down as much as it can by introducing them for only brief sequences. The men are distilled down to one defining characteristic: emotional, even-keeled, technical. They're not given any real personalities to speak of because, perhaps, there was a feeling the audience wouldn't care. Relationships with wives are boiled down to fears over who will come back alive. And the children have no role to play, outside of a couple stunningly boneheaded adult conversations they happen to catch.
I have to wonder what point Dale and Basgallop were trying to make with Moonshot. It can't be considered true historical record since portions are fictional or exaggerated. They're clearly not intending to get remembrances or interviews from the three astronauts; the real Aldrin is on screen for a maximum of 90 seconds. The filmmakers don't want to wow the audience with new information or previously unknown insight. So why make this particular film? Could it be the prototype of a new kind of programming for History, one that skirts the line between documentary and fiction to broaden the History brand? If so, this wasn't the best effort for a new line of programs.
THE LOOK
By all rights, Moonshot should look absolutely spectacular. The film was made in 2008 and has been released in high definition. Therefore, lines should be crisp and colors rich and vibrant with no trace of any problem on the screen. That's not the case here, with an overall mediocre presentation on Blu-ray. From the word go, there's a softness in the image, a brightness in every scene which seems to dilute background details. Blacks-such as shots of the night sky-are lacking in any true depth,opting instead to seemingly showcase every single pixel in that part of the screen. Quite literally, uniform rows can be seen running down the screen, as if someone overlaid an Excel spreadsheet over the picture. Daytime, or bright scenes, are marginally better than night ones, even with the faded colors.
Moonshot gets exponentially better-but still not wonderful-when Apollo 11 gets into space. The CGI shots, along with the interstitial year labels, showcase what the rest of the film should look like, with dark, deep blacks, defined shapes and all the promise of high def. This is, of course, excluding, the stock footage of Walter Cronkite, the original lunar module landing, Mission Control and a host of other people and locations. That looks necessarily grainy, worn and beat up.
THE SOUND
The sound quality on Moonshot is just as underwhelming as the video specs. Presented in either a standard English 5.1 mix or an uncompressed PCM 2.0 mix, this is a real missed opportunity. I'd fully expect the dialogue to be clear with distinct separation between it, the sound effects and the score. That expectation, at least is met. What is lacking is the authoritative, aggressive track this type of film should support. Not Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen-type acoustics, but something besides a mundane movie of the week feeling. As the shuttle blasts off into space, it doesn't go up with a bang. It's a whimper. Certainly, this is a problem with the production and not necessarily with either audio option. However, it reflects badly on those options when the audience isn't jarred out of their seats by booster rockets firing. (Not to mention the high def format, advertised as being the best of the best.)
The soundtrack is never given the chance to do anything of importance. Think of the bombast in Jerry Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture when the Enterprise is unveiled. Moonshot tells the story of man's first steps on the Moon. Shouldn't the accompanying audio mix be worthy of the Enterprise? English subtitles are included.
THE STUFF
The Blu-ray version of Moonshot comes in a generic BD case sans insert. A slipcover replicating the cover art is also included. Three different photo galleries-one each for the Apollo (7:56), Gemini (7:18) and Mercury (6:02) missions-is the first bonus feature on the disc. While a look at the real life Mission Control and other behind-the-scenes locales may be fascinating for space enthusiasts, the galleries run a bit too long for the average viewer, not to mention captions are not included to explain any of the shots.
More compelling are five tracks from the soundtrack played against the backdrop of the Moon and outer space. Available in both a Play All and individual options are: Pre-Launch (1:24), Launch (1:36), Space Flight (1:51), One Small Step (4:49) and Reunited (1:28). All are presented in a standard 2.0 mix. Last up are text-based biographies of six astronauts. The film is broken down into 10 chapters.
Moonshot is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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