A Shot Off the Mark

During last week's Emmy awards, when they got to the drawn-out and typically less interesting part of the show where they give awards for mini-series and TV movies, I noticed a nominee in the mix I'd never heard of before: Moonshot. Made in the UK and aired on the History Channel, this 90 minute film splashes some real NASA footage into originally filmed material to dramatize the Apollo 11 moon landing and events leading up to it. I'm a sucker for all things space oriented, so I decided to toss it in my Netflix queue and give it a shot.

Perhaps the brilliant mini-series From the Earth to the Moon got my expectations too high, but I found this film to be pretty lackluster. I'm forced to conclude that it was nominated for an Emmy only because the only network making many TV movies these days is the Syfy Channel -- and we know how good those are. There's a line from the movie Apollo 13 (yet another brilliant dramatization of the space race) about how NASA made "going to the moon as exciting as a trip to Pittsburgh." That was after it had been landed on twice already. But even though this was the about the first time, I felt moments where that line described things accurately.

For being such a momentous event, so full of emotion and wonder, the film fails to capture much of those elements. It moves workmanlike through many events well chronicled in other movies -- the Apollo 1 fire, the debate over "who will step on to the moon first," and so forth. I felt them walking in the shadow of not just the actual events, but the way they'd been portrayed before.

Stranger still was the decision to mix actual video and audio from 1969 in with the footage here. Sometimes it works, but during the landing itself, it's a distracting mess. The actors we've been watching for an hour are suddenly speaking with the voices of the actual astronauts coming out. They're lip synching, for lack of a better term. Some lines sound normal, recorded on a stage in 2009; others are garbled with the radio fuzz of 1969. It makes you acutely aware of how fake this whole production is -- assuming the sub-par special effects and awkward music haven't done that already.

But it does get the basic facts out there. I suppose someone less familiar with the history might be entertained and/or educated. There are also a few good actors here, including of all people James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) as Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

Or maybe I'm just making excuses because I am such a space nut at heart that even the not-too-well-done stuff gets a passing grade from me. But barely a passing grade. I rate this a C+. I'd say don't waste your time, especially if you've never seen the mini-series From the Earth to the Moon. Go get that instead.