Moonshot
HBO MAXWarner Bros continues their squeaky-clean logo streak of poor-quality films with another floundering, optics-driven feature that will presumably cash in on the similarity of titles released around it. Moonshot? Moonfall? what difference does it make at this point. Astronauts being shot off into the stars are always going to be dragged through a personal hell or emotional turmoil. Adapting such simplicity is easier said than done when Cole Sprouse leads the charge. Child actors have it tough, and audiences can at least respect Sprouse considering how driven he is, but he is driven towards projects that feel simple, airheaded, and not at all something that advances the perception of his abilities as nothing more than someone coasting off of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody: On Deck.
His passionate portrayal of Mars-loving Walt feels more like an Elon Musk fanboy scuppering any chance of personal growth to be in with a shot of launching themselves at the Red Planet. Naturally, for every perverse display of love for billionaires, there must be a billionaire present also. Moonshot has an ace up its sleeve, a get out of jail free card, some pocket sand to throw at the audience. Zach Braff, his doo-eyed appearance has lived on long after Scrubs went off the air, and small-time features with big-league actors are featuring Braff more and more. He seems fairly comfortable here in Moonshot, as he did with his leading role in Cheaper by the Dozen.
As great it is to see Braff feature in more projects, conversing well with Sprouse and popping up in bit parts like this, Moonshot relies much more on the dribbling chemistry between Sprouse and Lana Condor. Why are people so obsessed with living on Mars? Doesn't seem like the best place to be. Sandy, uninhabitable, poor climate. But so many individuals are like Walt: they think they’re the next big thing when they’re actually just one in a billion, trundling on dreaming of a big life beyond the stars because they’ve not made much of the one on home turf. Christopher Winterbauer must be feeling a little like that too, considering this feature-length fix-up is as grim as it gets. This is surely not what he envisioned for his career – cheap pops at the sci-fi genre without so much as a single break from the glistening glean of shiny trinkets and space-age technology.
To consider the impact Moonshot could have on the genre is to consider the implication that a Braff and Sprouse pairing could set the world on fire. Condor doesn’t break out well either, but at least these are competent performers who know how to hold a film up and not buckle under the pressure of an aimless script that hopes to appease those searching for a film that shoots beyond the stars but not for them. There is another vowel to replace that third “O” in Moonshot that would describe this feature, but it cannot be printed here. Grab an “I,” slot it right on in there. That’s Moonshot.