Hey, not every movie about humans in space has to be about battles for the galaxy, or, if the story is about planets closer to home, about being stranded on Mars or otherwise vexed by its harrowing problems. There's a place in movies about Mars for profundity delivered through joy, even the joy of maybe slightly older than teenage romance and humor.
That's right, and Moonshot is such a movie. A ways ahead in our future (2049), Walt (well acted by Cole Sprouse) wants to go to Mars because he kissed a girl (Ginny) one night, and she's going to Mars, and Walt wanted to go there anyway. He stows away on a ship to Mars with the help of Sophie (well acted by Lana Condor), a brilliant and deep thinker, who doesn't like space travel but whose boyfriend Calvin is already on Mars with his family.
Lots of frivolity and even Animal House-like slapstick ensue, but there's also lots of philosophic awareness onboard, with thoughts about the ultimate home of humanity and Earth as our best place in the universe and therein (ala Buckminster Fuller) a unique and irreplaceable spaceship for humankind. These come mainly from Sophie, with Walt providing encouragement and some pretty crucial common-sense thinking of his own at crucial times in the narrative.
Predictably but still enjoyably, the two fall in love on the trip to Mars, and the story then becomes how will Sophie break that news to her boyfriend (Ginny has already found someone else on Mars). I won't tell you how all of this ends, other than that there are good twists and turns. Will true love triumph over the human drive to go further out into space in pursuit of something which many people (including me) view as our destiny?
See Moonshot and see for yourself.
first spaceship to Alpha Centauri from Mars
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