Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

There is an astronaut on the poster, but really there is nothing sci-fi in the film. It's all a exposition of how the author remembers childhood in the 60s. It makes you wonder if we're in a better place, really. We knew next to nothing, but we had so much fun! Where is the fun now? This is mostly what the film asks.

For some reason, the whole thing was rotoscoped, but I don't think there was a good reason for it, other than to give it a surrealistic feeling.

I have to say that I liked the film a lot, even if it is mostly narration accompanied by images. It tells a story, unlike most movies of today. If you want to feel nostalgic about the past century and/or your childhood give it a go. I shudder to think what kids born this millennium will make of it.

Fmovies: Fun animation depicting a time when most all people were experiencing the same look at a real time event in our early stages of technology. For better or worse, everyone was viewing from a shared lense. Quite a contrast from our splintered viewing from which we now interpret real time reality. The director has nailed the zeitgeist of 1969.

Utilising the rotoscope animation style he perfected in his previous animated film efforts Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, famed indie director Richard Linklater brings colour and soul to his semi-autobiographical Netflix original Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure, in what is a nostalgia heavy trip back to the NASA obsessed state of Texas in the 60's where man's quest to conquer the moon was at the forefront of everyone's minds and hearts.

One of the most purely enjoyable and laid-back films I can recall watching, Apollo 10 1/2 finds Linklater operating back at peak form after a few so-so years behind the camera with the likes of Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Last Flag Flying as he here crafts a childhood infused love letter to his own experiences growing up in the space-age era that ensures his film is one that will feel relevant and understandable to anyone who has grown up in the great big world we live in and offers a nice alternative exploration of the well-explored Apollo mission that gives us a fresh spin on the world changing events of the late 60's.

Forgoing a typical narrative approach in favour of implementing a Jack Black lead voice over for virtually a full hour of the films 90 minute running time, a risky move that pays off big time as you are transported back to our lead protagonist and Linklater stand in Stan, Apollo 10 1/2 offers a mostly captivating experience that captures the 60's and the NASA space age as good as any film that I could recall seeing and regardless if your interest in space is minimal or obsessive, Linklater's film will grip when on land watching TV shows or listening to records just as much as it grips when venturing to out of space with its more fantastical elements.

One of those films you can feel coming about from lived in experiences and someones own personal memories and heartfelt musings, Apollo 10 1/2 is one of the most genuinely effective and touching features Linklater has ever produced, right up there with his most well-liked products such as the Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused and Boyhood.

While some may find the films lack of a hard narrative or non-linear plotline frustrating, for anyone willing to be taken on a trip back to a time and place that feels like a lifetime ago while also strangely feeling relevant and in touch with how life is now, Apollo 10 1/2 is an absolutely joy and a hidden Netflix gem that deserves to find as big of an audience on the platform as any of their recent Ryan Reynolds stinkers that would do well to employ some of the creativity and substance that is found in Linklater's beautiful little film.

Final Say -

It may not offer anything of a revelatory nature but Richard Linklater's newest film is a minor masterpiece and one of the best examples in recent years of a nostalgia lead trip back in time.

4 1/2 scoops of vanilla ice cream out of 5.

For more reviews check out Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood fmovies. Nostalgia plays a huge role in how much you enjoy this movie, more than half of the it is spent detailing and showcasing how life was like in for a kid in 1969 Houston, Texas suburbia.

The movie is innocent, colorful and charming, it might not be particularly substantial but it's a feel-good movie, you can't hate it.

The title and trailer is definitely misleading by insinuating that this is some sort of space adventure. Granted, there are some fragments of space adventuring going on, but 95% of the film is basically a time capsule of the 60s which tells you all about what life was back then, filled to the brim with nostalgia.

As such it reminded me a bit of The Virgin Suicides in the romantic way it glorifies those long lost days, so stuffed with timely music, tv-shows and other pop-cultural tidbits that it successfully weaves a rose tinted memory of childhood, which will probably have most people create nostalgic connections to what all these references mean in their own life.

Not up there the Boyhood, or the Before trilogy, but fun nevertheless.

The recreation of the 1960s Linklater family tropes is heartfelt and truly etched, and the rotoscope animation is brilliant, but there is a little too much ticking-the-box of 1960s topical events and cultural trends.

The winsome fantasy of the kid astronaut is meant to be the rocket propellant that binds it and lifts it, but this does not quite come off.