First Man (2018)

This film covers a lot of ground before fizzling out after the moon landing.
The film begins before Neil (Ryan Gosling) joins NASA. He just a pilot but it never mentions for whom. Later, he is selected for NASA and the film really gets underway.
Sure, the film covers the six years leading up to Apollo 11 and hyper focuses on some details while skirting over others, highlighting the devastating fire that killed Neil's friend, Ed White (Jason Clarke) and then barely mentions the next two and a half years before Neil gets his opportunity to fly to the moon, also jumping back and forth between the advances in the space program and the Armstrong's home life (who knew that the Armstrongs lost a young daughter due to some sort of cancer?)
While the film is great in transporting you back to the 1960s, it tries to tell all sides, even showing those who were against the space program, taking all the funding away from most important causes, and demonstrates truly how claustrophobic the space capsules were, the ton goes from intense to breezy in the blink of an eye. But the script just covers too much, which is a shame as Foy (as Janet, Neil's wife) and Gosling give remarkable performances and the film is well put together, but it falls short of being the masterpiece it should have been.
After the intense scene of the near-disaster in air, the flight that actually has success is not focused on until they finally land on the moon. And then, the film ends with Neil in quarantine and Janet going to see him, touching fingers with glass between. There is no finishing statements on what happened to the Armstrongs afterward or the space program in general, leaving the film feeling super incomplete.
Unlike Gosling and Chazelle's last pairing, this film is a true ensemble piece, with great support from Clarke, Corey Stoll (as an asshole Buzz Aldrin), Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit (whose character died too soon), Kyle Chandler (always great) and Ciaran Hinds. All the other pieces were there too, brilliant score, flawless editing and great camera angles, but I have rather the film focused solely on the months leading up to Apollo 11 and that flight rather than on everything else. Sadly, this film fell short, Apollo 13 remains the best space film in Hollywood. Grade: B+