Film Review: Moonshot is an offbeat romcom that struggles to hit escape-velocity

“Exploration is how we discover where we truly belong,” Walt tell us, which suggests that Walt truly belongs in a spaceship’s equivalent of a hidey-hole under the stairs.

Fri, 29 Apr, 2022 - 15:00

Declan Burke

★★★☆☆

Set in 2049, the teen romance sci-fi road movie Moonshot (12A) opens with barista Walt (Cole Sprouse) stowing away on a mission to Mars to pursue the girl of his dreams. (“Exploration is how we discover where we truly belong,” Walt tell us, which suggests that Walt truly belongs in a spaceship’s equivalent of a hidey-hole under the stairs.)

When his hiding place is rumbled by Sophie (Lana Condor), an astrophysics major, Walt agrees to impersonate Sophie’s boyfriend Calvin (Mason Gooding) so that she won’t alert the authorities. Will their mutual animosity give way to tenderness, understanding and a burgeoning romance?

Written by Max Taxe and directed by Christopher Winterbauer, Moonshot is an occasionally offbeat comedy romance that struggles to achieve escape velocity: the story’s trajectory is more or less as straight and predictable as that of the Mars-bound spaceship, and while the leading pair are charming enough as individual characters, they lack chemistry as a romantic pairing and comic duo.

Things do perk up when the lesser-spotted Zach Braff pops up as a megalomaniac genius, delivering just enough zany energy to make this one worth your while.

(Warner/HBO)