Moonshot - A Pleasant Romantic Comedy with Sci-fi Background

Yesterday there was this new movie playing on HBO Go which I was interested in watching as it had simple premise and seemed light and fun. So I gave it a try immediately last night. Well here's more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in 2049 where living in Mars was possible due to the work by self-made billionaire Leon Kovi (Zach Braff - Cheaper by the Dozen 2022 version etc). A college student named Walt (Cole Sprouse - Five Feet Apart etc) who had been eyeing to go to Mars was feeling frustrated that he could not go.

Meanwhile Sophie (Lana Condor - Deadly Class TV series etc) was an intelligent girl who was having long distance relationship with her boyfriend Calvin (Mason Gooding - Scream 2022 etc) in Mars. However, she did not dare to go there due to some reasons. This made Walt irritated and tried to encourage her to go to Mars. 

So what would happen to Walt's mission to Mars and Sophie's relationship with Calvin? You could find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As mentioned above, this movie seemed very light and it turned out to be just like that. During the early part, we were introduced with the male lead Walt who was a well liked ordinary guy but having strong desire to go to Mars which would make us root for him. It was also interesting to see the story development especially when we saw Sophie and other characters appeared like Calvin and Ginny (Emily Rudd - Fear Street Part 2: 1978 etc). In addition, there were also Captain Tarter (comedian Michelle Buteau) who provided comical moments, and a familiar face Christine Adams (Black Lightning TV series etc) as Calvin's mother.

With the story set in year 2049 where planet Mars took center stage, we were shown some stuff that were supposed to give us strong future feel like the robotic machine that have speech capability, as well as building structures on Mars and some space ships. The special effects did not disappoint especially for a film that I believe is a TV movie, but do not expect it to be spectacular since it is not a big budget sci-fi movie. I also noticed the famous name of Greg Berlanti in here as one of the co-producers. The movie was directed by Chris Winterbauer and written by Max Taxe who were more experienced in mostly short films. Oh, in case you are wondering, the film has different premise with the 2017 movie Space Between Us even though it was also a teenagers sci-fi rom com with Mars as the setting, but that one felt heavier than this.

For a rom-com movie, I was quite entertained by the story despite its predictability. As usual in such films, we could already predict the outcome but it's always the journey that would make us enjoy it. And in this area, I thought the movie was quite successful in making us having a pleasant feeling. I believe it was due to the nice performance of Cole Sprouse and Lana Condor who were both quite experienced in romantic roles (Lana was the lead cast of To All The Boys films). In addition, the background songs were mostly nice too, even if I have never heard any of them.

The duration of the movie which was 99 minutes without any mid or end credit scenes felt just perfect as any longer would feel too draggy. Btw, this is a PG-13 rated, so it's safe for teenagers. Overall I had fun watching this movie as it successfully gave me warm feeling. It is a simple rom-com movie with some sci-fi background that was not dark or heavy at all. So if you are looking for such film, this one should satisfy you. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars