Moonshot (2022)
(On Cable TV, April 2022) It took me a much longer time than I expected (or is ideal) to warm up to Moonshot, but I eventually came around. It doesn’t start all that promisingly with an atonal blend of young adult fiction tropes, comedy, romance and science fiction. Our protagonist is a lovelorn loser who’s apparently not too good at school, dismal in romance and repeatedly rejected by the budding Mars colony. (The film takes place against a vaguely dystopian but never questioned set-up where a wacky billionaire has control over Martian colonization –could that ever happen?) After a laborious set-up, the film and his life finally kick into high gear as he encounters an attractive girl leaving for Mars, gets into an argument with another girl rich enough to pay her way over there and incompetently smuggles himself onboard the latest flight to Mars. (There’s apparently a monopoly on Mars travel or something. Also, artificial gravity. I’m not sure which one is least plausible.) A good chunk of Moonshot is spent aboard that multi-month trip from Earth to Mars: As the predictable engines of romance get going, our protagonist gets closer to the girl he disliked and bluffs his way through the flight in impersonating someone else rather than spend the trip hiding in air ducts. Much of Moonshot is off kilter – amusingly so, but sometimes in ways that are enough to make anyone wish the script had been more finely tuned. Still, it eventually grows on everyone. Cole Sprouse eventually makes his character work, awkwardness and all, but it’s Lana Condor who becomes the film’s biggest asset, with Michelle Buteau getting to steal a few great scenes. The special effects are quite good for a straight-to-HBO release, and the Science Fiction elements generally work in ways that didn’t in the similar film The Space Between Us. Director Chris Winterbauer has a few good moments up his sleeve, and despite a few sputters here and there, Moonshot eventually brings together the elements for a winning formula. Cute, sweet, not too stupid and generally likable: it may not be an all-time classic, but it eventually becomes watchable enough.