Moonshot is a sci-fi romcom. It aims, not for the moon, but for Mars. I watch a lot of romcoms and the genre usually works for me, but this one came up short in several ways.
Cole Sprouse and Lana Condor star in Moonshot as the unlikely lovers. I could never warm up to Sprouse as the supposedly handsome and charming Walt. I didn’t understand how Sophie (Condor) would be attracted to him.
The sci-fi sets and visuals were not sophisticated and looked like they came from the discount store. The slowly developing romance and the happy ending were offset by these issues.
The plot is that Sophie had a family on Mars, including her boyfriend Calvin (Mason Gooding). He was supposed to return from Mars in a year and support her while she worked on her Ph.D. in developing an algae that ate garbage.
While working in the coffee shop, Walt met Ginny (Emily Rudd) who was leaving on a Mars mission the next day. These two flirted a bit and Walt declared her to be his one true love and he had to go to Mars to be with her. He didn’t really care about her, he wanted to have an adventure.
Walt worshiped the billionaire Leon Kovi (Zach Braff). He had applied 37 times to the Kovi corporation to get a job on Mars. He’d been turned down every time. He was getting desperate.
Walt also met Sophie, who had the million bucks needed to buy a ticket to Mars. He decided to stow away on a ship and finagled Sophie into helping him.
Most of the action took place on the trip to Mars. The captain was Michelle Buteau, who was her usual funny self but with a 165 IQ.
The actual cutest couple in this comedy were Tabby (Cameron Esposito) and Celeste (Sunita Deshpande). They had been together for 18 years, but decided to get engaged based on some romantic stuff Walt said when he was pretending to know things about science. The cat Ripley was a nice addition to the cast, too.
The story twisted and turned its way toward a “there’s no place like home” ending.
To be fair, I think young people, especially fans of Lana Condor, will be happy with this movie and cheered by the ending. Plus, the film gets bonus points for having a lesbian couple in space. If that’s enough to make you happy, go for it!