First Man Review: 8 Ups & 2 Downs

3. Damien Chazelle's Masterful Direction

First Man represents yet another bold leap forward for Damien Chazelle, who at the mere age of 33 has released his third near-universally acclaimed major movie, and one that's sure to court awards as aggressively as both Whiplash and La La Land.

La La Land was an incredibly ambitious film as musicals go, but First Man is clearly on a whole other level, despite keeping its budget sensibly quite low (only costing double La La Land's $30 million price tag).

The peerless staging of the space sequences is one thing, but Chazelle does a marvellous job provoking a wide gamut of feelings from the viewer, making this a proud tribute to NASA's achievement and also an engrossing character study and family drama.

It's not easy to keep all these plates spinning at once, but yet again, Chazelle makes it look so damn easy.