Moonshot (2022) and Mediocrity (c.1500s)
What it Means to Be Just Below Average— Consistently
I actually like this movie, despite the verbal viciousness of my title. That wasn’t for the movie, which hit many a romcom genre trope that I enjoyed in my little gremlin heart, but specifically for Cole Sprouse’s character: Walt. The bastard.
[Man there were so many moments in the movie where I wanted to hit his character over the head with a bucket full of milk and just ask him “How oh sweet baby Jesus HOW can you be so painfully stupid???”]
I mentioned this in the newsletter on the JLoXOwenWilson “Marry Me” Fic, but recognizing the genre you are about to endure, really does help whether or not you will enjoy the movie or not. Knowing this is a fun movie leaning into its genre roots and pressing those tropes hard made me enjoy it more and forgive its less than savory plot holes or nonsensical turn of events. Which…were many.
It hits some classic romance tropes while still pushing out a rather unfamiliar story of following your dreams, or your heart.
The title in itself is a fun nod to its interstellar storyline, Wired even defining the phrase as “shorthand for trying to do something that’s really hard and maybe a bit crazy.” Which makes sense as we follow two seemingly unlikely love stories getting tangled up en route to Mars. Where love is something that’s really hard and maybe a bit crazy. And the idea that we colonized Mars being equally hard and crazy.
Fun fun double meanings!
Our polar-opposite protagonists accidentally cross paths at a college party. The meeting not going well is an understatement, but they eventually bond over lowkey wanting the same thing: Walt and Sophie (Lana Condor) want to go to Mars for their respective love interests.
Walt’s desire to go to Mars is chocolate-coated by his infatuation with Ginny (Emily Rudd— no relation to the Paul of Antly men), a girl he barely knows. Sophie’s desire is to reunite with her adopted family and a seemingly-perfect-but-less-than-socially-aware boyfriend.
They both manage to get on the rocket to Mars, Sophie legally. Walt…less than legal and possibly in a way that is stupid personified.
Over the course of their 30+ days bunked together, they learn more about each other and maybe perhaps fall in love with how imperfect the other party is.
This newfound relationship comes under duress as they get closer to Mars and realize that maybe their differences are too great. And that maybe they should have remained strangers instead.
You want Sci-Fi? You want romance? You want awkward hitting comedy? Damn this movie has it all. Even algae flavored ice cream [which I don’t think is real but would very much like to try].
This isn’t like Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) or like Fletcher’s The Proposal (2009). It doesn’t redefine a genre or come at you with a killer soundtrack or mind-blowing CGI or even revolutionary time-space theorems. It borrows from these several genres and from what I watched, it does so in an enjoyable, albeit eye-twitching way.
Mediocrity is a Sin, But We Adore the Sinner
Walt is supposed to be the average man. He has applied to the Mars Program dozens of times unsuccessfully and is an assistant barista on his college campus and…that’s about it.
He has no skills, no admirable knowledge or experience that would benefit society, no real reason to go to Mars besides the fact that he likes it and is inspired by it.
His one saving grace is that he tries. Really fucking hard. To no avail.
Walt isn’t just the average man, he is far below average, someone that is so devastatingly mediocre, he becomes the mascot for the NASA equivalent called Kovi. His job is to be an inspiration: If he can do it, if him, as a failure in society in every other aspect, can make it to Mars, then anyone can.
Walt isn’t something to aspire to be here, he is the bare minimum that people can easily surpass. Despite being disrespectful (yet accurate) to him, he kind of accepts this fate. It doesn’t feel great, being emasculated and then held up as a manchild who literally can’t do anything right, but if this is the price to pay for fulfilling his dreams, it’s worth it right?
He falls into the trap of being in the right place at the right time. While many protagonists we love have the additional trope of being “the chosen one” or having special lineage or being the expert in a specific arcane skill, Walt is none of the above.
Walt is told, time and time again, that he has these opportunities just because. He is not special or chosen or interesting. His averageness is what they commodify and sell, but those around him never let him forget that that makes him lesser than everyone he is working with.
In a space full of brilliant engineers and scientists, Walt is the human we most closely relate to but hate because he is the embodiment of all the worst traits we have in ourselves.
Yet in this instance, he becomes objectified for it and we gobble it up.
Ignorance is Bliss
Walt is not smart. That’s not being rude, that’s a statement of a glaringly obvious fact that his character lacks a lot of common sense and showcases a brilliant inability to make intelligent and self-aware decisions.
Kind of like a puppy, but with more consequences to poorly thought out actions.
Sophie’s character flaw is her intellect. She has a checklist for the perfect man and Calvin (Mason Gooding) knocks each bullet point out of the park. Walt doesn’t have a single mark on the list, scoring in the negatives out of a solid 100 points possible.
Despite this, his ignorance “helps” him out a majority of the movie.
Only someone who’s watched enough spy movies, trolled across enough Reddit pages, and obsessed over the Kovi lore like Walt has could create his own hair-brained scheme to sneak onto Mars. He is his own inciting incident which is fricken hilarious.
This ignorance hurts his relationship with Sophie throughout the movie and even with the viewers because we want him to pick up on social cues or not be so self-absorbed but he is.
He is not a good protagonist to root for in the sense that he does good. He is a good protagonist because we relate to him and his romantic plight, but every other action and motivation is a foot in his mouth and poorly, if ever, explained.
However however however.
He doesn’t sweat the small stuff. His actions speak louder than the convoluted words that dribble out of his mouth. He cares about Sophie and knows that she is an absolute catch.
Walt is so imperfect, it’s annoying. But his heart is in the right place. He knows how to have fun. He is everything we hate to see in ourselves, but he’s also the best parts we forget to acknowledge.
At the end of the day, he is the average man. And that’s okay.