Moonshot (2022) Sci-fi Movie Review and Ending Explained

Moonshot (2022) Sci-fi Movie Review and Ending Explained

Moonshot is a romantic science-fiction comedy film directed by Chris Winterbauer and written by Max Taxe in the United States. Cole Sprouse, Lana Condor, Mason Gooding, Emily Rudd, and Zach Braff star in the film. The plot revolves around a college student (Condor) who assists a barista (Sprouse) in smuggling himself into a space shuttle bound for Mars. On March 31, 2022, HBO Max released the film.

In the age of superhero pictures and streaming platforms, romantic comedies have become increasingly rare. They’re almost non-existent in theatres, especially in the post-pandemic era, and the only locations where they’re available are, paradoxically, streaming services.

Even rarer are romantic comedies based in a science fiction universe. The most unusual are romantic comedies that use a science fiction backdrop to examine timeless topics like immigration, financial imbalance, and bigotry.

And with their ambitious film, ‘Moonshot,’ director Christopher Winterbauer and screenwriter Max Taxe have accomplished exactly that.

The plot is set in 2049 and revolves around Walt (Cole Sprouse), a laid-back barista, and Sophie (Lana Condor), a college student who appears to have it all figured out. Walt is keen to see the colonised Mars, while Sophie decides to visit the Red Planet because her boyfriend lives there.

After Walt becomes a stowaway on the same space shuttle that Sophie has boarded, circumstances force them to work together. Here’s everything you need to know about ‘Moonshot’ movie.

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Moonshot (2022) Sci-fi Movie Review

Synopsis of the Moonshot (2022) Movie Plot

Humans have colonised Mars in 2049, with billionaire Leon Kovi (Zach Braff), an Elon Musk-like figure, driving the charge. Walt idolises the man and wants to follow in his footsteps and go on adventures with him. It would be an exaggeration to claim Walt lacks a feeling of purpose in his life. So there’s that. He urgently wants to go to Mars.

However, he has changed his major 16 times in college and now has no choice but to graduate. He had previously applied 36 times and been turned down for a position in the Kovi Industries Student Mars Program. And now is swiftly running out for him to visit the Red Planet. He’s broke all the time and works as an assistant barista to a robot at a cafe on campus.

Sophie, on the other hand, has a strategy. Her lover (Mason Gooding) and his family are currently on Mars. They want to produce a plant that can eat waste after he returns to Earth and she graduates, as garbage has become as huge a problem as one can imagine by 2049. She is also well-off monetarily.

When she was 14 years old, her parents died. Calvin’s family took her in after that. They’ve become her family for all intents and purposes since then. She meets Walt at her house during a party, and Walt does not make a good impression on her. Walt runs into Ginny (Emily Rudd), an astrophysicist major from one of his seminars, later that evening.

They begin to converse, and an instant bond develops between them. They exchange a kiss in front of the rocket that will send the next batch of pupils to Mars as darkness transitions today. Ginny discloses that she is heading to Mars just as she is about to leave. She was apparently undecided, but after conversing with Walt, she has changed her mind.

Walt’s 37th application has been turned down as well. He runs up to Sophie again and discovers that she is depressed because Calvin has accepted a position on Mars, therefore prolonging his stay there forever and destabilising their plans.

Sophie decides to pay for her travel on Walt’s advice. Everyone she knows is on Mars, after all. She also has the financial means to do so. Meanwhile, Walt slips into the ship with Sophie’s help, believing that no one has seen him pass through customs. Later on, he realises how wrong he was.

Sophie is the one who initially notices him and is appalled when she realises she has become a criminal accomplice. However, she assists him in remaining undetected by convincing others that he is Calvin.

Between the two of them, a tentative bond begins to grow. However, their polar opposite personality overturns practically every candid moment. When they do get along, however, beautiful things happen.

They go on a spacewalk together, and Sophie enjoys the time of her life, despite her reservations. When they get to Mars, Walt is arrested, but Sophie is reunited with Calvin and his family.

Moonshot (2022) Sci-fi Movie Explained

Moonshot (2022) Cast Details:

  • Walt is played by Cole Sprouse.
  • Sophie is played by Lana Condor, and Calvin is played by Mason Gooding.
  • Ginny is played by Emily Rudd.Leon Kovi is played by Zach Braff.
  • Calvin Riggins is played by Lukas Gage.
  • Captain Tarter is played by Michelle Buteau.
  • Jan is played by Christine Adams, and Tabby is played by Cameron Esposito.
  • Celeste is played by Sunita Deshpande.

Production:

Moonshot is the second film of a four-picture partnership between HBO Max and the Berlanti-Schechter Films production business. Cole Sprouse, Lana Condor, Mason Gooding, Emily Rudd, Lukas Gage, and Zach Braff were set to star between April and July 2021. In June 2021, production began in Atlanta, Georgia.

Moonshot (2022) Sci-fi Movie Ending Explained

Do Walt and Sophie End Up Together at the End of the ‘Moonshot’ Movie?

Walt and Sophie do end up together, but not without going through a period of disillusionment. Ginny drops by, stating that she was disturbed when she learned that he had decided to pursue her after only one meeting.

She also presents Walt to her boyfriend, the guard who helped her gain access to the prison where Walt is being held captive. Ginny tries to reassure Walt that he is now with his true love, Mars, as she walks away. What she doesn’t realise is that this assertion is no longer correct.

When Walt tries to sneak into the ship, he realises that he was not fooling anyone. Leon Kovi and his staff were aware of it, but they determined that Walt posed no threat to the guests who had paid for the trip, so he was allowed to stay.

The footage was subsequently posted on the internet, where it quickly went viral. While Kovi’s company’s board of directors wants him to send Walt back, defying their demands brings Kovi a special kind of joy. As a result, Walt gets to stay on Mars.

In other news, Sophie begins to suspect that some of Walt’s claims about her and Calvin’s relationship are uncomfortably accurate. Their objective was to stay on the planet and clean it up. Instead, she’s currently on Mars, millions of kilometres away from her dreams.

Calvin also informs her that he has suggested her for a position on his research team without consulting her. Sophie makes the decision to break up with Calvin after consulting with Calvin’s mother Jan, who has taken on the role of a mother for her since her parent’s deaths.

For a long time, Mars has served as a source of inspiration, a great place to go on adventures, a beacon of hope for the future, and so on. If Walt had been born 600 years earlier, he would have stolen a boat and just sailed away, as he tells Ginny.

Instead, he was born with an adventurous spirit. Mars, for him, is the answer to all of life’s big questions as well as the source of all his unrest. However, he elevates the concept of life on Mars to such a high level that it was always doomed to fail. He gradually finds that the barren planet isn’t quite what he expected.

Walt decides to return to Earth after declining Kovi’s offer to go to Ceres and learning that Sophie is aboard the return shuttle. They come together in the shuttle that returns the waste to Earth. Walt tells Sophie that he is delighted to accompany her.

With the line “she’s my adventure,” he wins her over. They exchange a kiss against the breathtaking backdrop of Mars.

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