In 2049, mankind has successfully colonized Mars with applicants able to either purchase commercial tickets or apply for the a work program. Assistant barista and slacker Walt Scott (Cole Sprouse) having been rejected 37 times and finding his "dream girl" Ginny (Emily Rudd) is now going to Mars finally decides to stowaway on the latest ship to mars using the unwitting help of Sophie Tsukino (Lana Candor) whom he tricks into bringing through the boarding gate so he can sneak in on the escape pods. Shortly after liftoff, Sophie quickly discovers Walt and realizing that security will connect his presence to her reluctantly helps hide him so she isn't placed on a no-fly list and kept from reunited with her boyfriend Calvin (Mason Gooding). Over the course of a month Walt and Sophie serve as reluctant roomates with their relationship developing over time.
Moonshot comes to us from producer Greg Berlanti's Berlanti-Schechter Filmsin the second feature film produced for HBO Max following 2020's unpregnant. The movie is the first major release for director Chris Winterbauer and writer Max Taxe with Winterbauer's previous credits being mostly short films and a feature called Wyrm which appears to have never been released. On paper the film seems like an okay setup for a light sci-fi comedy romance film, but in execution it falls flat with two leads who don't fit as a couple despite the movie's attempt to make them.
Cole Sprouse plays Walt as a slacker who hasn't accomplished anything and somehow thinks going to Mars will fix all his problems. He meets a random girl, Ginny, at a party and takes this as "love" and uses it as an excuse to trick someone into helping him stowaway. Lana Condor plays Sophie who's tightly wound, abrasive, and condescending and seems and the character despite having more drive than Walt by comparison carries airs of superiority that honestly just grated on me. Both these characters are awful and their chemistry is virtually non-existent. At the relative "height" of their "romance" Walt and Sophie never feel like they go above mildly tolerating each other let alone romance especially in comparison to ancillary characters like Cameron Esposito's Tabby and Sunita Deshpande's Celeste who make you wonder "why are we not watching a movie about these two?".
Moonshot evokes the feel of a number of other similar movies with bits of Wall-E, Silent Running, or even more recent films like Love and Monsters and it just doesn't come anywhere close to the level of these movies you can't help but compare it to. Maybe if our two leads had the slightest bit of chemistry to them or endeared themselves, but they don't. Even in the third act nadir Sophie still has more chemistry with Calvin than with Walt and the movie wants us to root for Sophie and Walt as a couple. The one element I can say kind of worked was Zach Braff as space entrepreneur Leon Kovi whose whole gimmick basically boils down to laughing at how much of an idiot Walt is and his turning Walt into an interstellar punchline by Memeing while a little pandering was probably the high point of the humor in this movie which probably speaks to how inert the humor truly is. There are also some moments of visual wonder and genuine awe in the movie tat almost work, but most of the time the setting isn't fully exploited and it might as well be a cruise ship for all it effects the plot.
Moonshot is not good. It features two unlikable characters portrayed by actors with no chemistry and pales in comparison to similarly themed films that are better. Zach Braff's brief performance at the end was kind of entertaining and there's individual moments that almost work, but this is one you can skip without missing much.
