Director – Christopher Winterbauer, Screenplay – Max Taxe, Producers – Greg Berlanti, Jill McElroy, Jenna Sarkin & Sarah Schechter, Photography – Brendan Uegama, Music – David Boman, Visual Effects Supervisor – Jay Randall, Visual Effects – Double Negative, Special Effects Supervisor – Ken Gorrell, Production Design – Eddie Matazzoni. Production Company – Berlanti-Schechter Films/360 Entertainment.
Cast
Cole Sprouse (Walter Scott), Lana Condor (Sophie Tsukino), Mason Gooding (Calvin Riggins), Zach Braff (Leon Kovi), Michelle Buteau (Captain Tarter), Emily Rudd (Ginny), Davey Johnson (Earl), Christine Adams (Jan Riggins), Peter Woodward (Voice of Gary), Cameron Esposito (Tabby), Sunita Deshpande (Celeste), Lukas Gage (Dalton), Jac Huberman (Voice of Angie/Cornelia)
Plot
The year 2049. Walter Scott is a lowly barista working near the launch site for Kovi Industries, the company that has created the first colony on Mars. Walt’s dream in life to be able to go to Mars but his application has been rejected 37 times. Walt goes to a party where he walks into the room of Sophie Tsukino, a student who is talking to her boyfriend Calvin on Mars, and accidentally breaks her communications orb. At the party, Walt connects with Ginny, a physics major, one of the people who is not bored by his talkative manner, and they find a mutual attraction before she reveals she is due to leave on the launch to Mars the next day. Walt does everything he can to get on the flight. Learning that Sophie has bought a commercial ticket to go and join Calvin on the next flight, Walt uses the pretext of going to see her off and sneaks into the loading docks where he hides aboard one of the ship’s escape capsules. The flight is launched but Sophie discovers him on board. She reluctantly agrees to hide him in her cabin, while coming up with a scheme to get him to pose as Calvin.
Moonshot is a film produced by Greg Berlanti, mostly known for his work as a tv producer on the Arrowverse shows Arrow (2012-20), The Flash (2014-23), Supergirl (2015-21), Legends of Tomorrow (2016-22), Batwoman (2019-22) and Superman & Lois (2021- ). It was the second film for director Christopher Winterbauer who had previously made the SF film Wyrm (2019).
It becomes apparent soon in that Moonshot is more Romantic Comedy than it is a serious film about the colonisation of Mars. It doesn’t entirely let the SF side of things down – there are no major embarrassments when it talks about Mars, although it does offer ‘quantum splicing’ as a piece of handwave doubletalk to allow instantaneous communications between Earth and Mars. There’s also a spacewalk scene where Cole Sprouse and Lana Condor walk out along an extending platform and then take a leap upwards, all without a tether. (With the ship travelling at x many thousands kms/hr, this is a feat that should in reality have left them going in one direction and the ship rapidly heading in the opposite direction). Although the most puzzling thing about the film is that it is called ‘Moonshot’ when in fact no journey to the Moon features – it should more accurately be called ‘Mars Shot’ but I guess that was more awkward on the tongue.
Moonshot is lumbered with a majorly improbable scenario in which a teenager manages to stow away on a flight to Mars without anybody noticing or the apparent lack of any kind of security that prevents him from sneaking in to the cargo area. (This becomes even more improbable when you get to the twist that comes about two-thirds of the way through the film). There is some sort of equally improbable sleight of hand conducted that allows him to impost as Lana Condor’s boyfriend without anybody on board actually checking out a photo of the boyfriend.
Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse en route to Mars
As a romantic comedy, the film also suffers from an unlikeable lead – Cole Sprouse, best known as Jughead in tv’s Berlanti-produced Riverdale (2017- ) and a regular on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005-8). Sprouse has an annoying manner that made me feel that I wanted to punch him in the face within the first five minutes of the film. There is also a really bad performance from Michelle Buteau who plays the sort of character that usually gets cast as the annoying, over-friendly next-door neighbour in a sitcom, and makes the least captain-like ship captain in science-fiction surely – she even gets lame comedy-relief lines begging people to get married on her shift.
On the other hand, the film does have the relatively less known Lana Condor who gives a perky and intelligent performance that fills out the side of the relationship far more than Cole Sprouse ever does. You end up engaging in the eventual connection between the two characters because of her. In fact, the latter third of the film, once it gets past the awkward stowaway comedy and improbable situation, does start to work quite nicely in giving the two characters decent arcs that eventually merge.
