MOONSHOT

US, 2022, 104 minutes, Colour.

Cole Sprouse, Lana Condor, Zach Braff, Mason Gooding.

Directed by Christopher Winterbauer.

A futuristic space travel, romcom, for HBO Max streaming. It might have been more successful had it been for the Disney Channel where Cole Sprouse and his twin brother Dylan appeared regularly from the age of six. This film has that kind of Disney Channel atmosphere.

On the big question is why it was called Moonshot when the travel is to Mars.

The target audience seems to be 20+ or minus – and not too far into the 20+!

The focus is on Walt, who speaks to camera, telling of his dreams and ambitions to go to Mars – is not the greatest student, often slow on the uptake, working as an assistant the barista, supervised by a robot. At a party, he encounters a young girl who is to travel to Mars the next day, spent some time with her, is infatuated, determined to get to Mars, even to stowing away.

However, at the bar, he encounters Sophie, Vietnamese born actress, Lana Condor. She is about to go to Mars to meet her boyfriend who works there, and the family who took her in in time of trouble. She and Walt clash. However, he tells her of his dreams and goes to see her off at the rocket launch, eventually getting himself on board.

There are the predictable romcom encounters, liking, dislike, and at one stage Sophie telling Walt to shut up. The screenwriter and the director don’t take any notice of this advice and Walt keeps on talking and talking (a charitable commentator likening him to a young Ryan Reynolds).

So, there are the scenes on the spacecraft, scenes of arrival, Sophie and difficulties with her boyfriend, wanting to return to Earth. There is Walt, arrested and, the revelation in the form of Zach Braff, the Elon Musk style entrepreneur of space travel, who sees Walt is so dumb that he is an advertising plus, that ordinary people seeing what he could achieve feel that they could, even better!

And the moral of the story is, be yourself, fall in genuine love, know your own story, life everywhere is much the same…