I didn't watch this to be entertained, though I was. I watched it to be educated. At some point I thought the film was being overly dramatic and doubted that the events happened the way they did. What I have found is that few of those really dramatic moments even happened.
I was not watching this to see African American women experiencing discrimination and not being taken seriously (although I halfway expected women not to be taken seriously). I watched this to see strong intelligent women accomplishing a lot for the U. S. space program. And to some extent, I saw that. Maybe things didn't happen quite the way the movie says they did, but the scenes with Katherine Johnson doing the complicated math were quite effective. And I learned about a group of women called "computers" back when people hadn't yet learned to think of the word as referring to machines. I may have learned details of the specifics of discrimination and the protests that I didn't know.
Most of the scenes showing the women being treated as less than equal never happened, but if we pretend they did then they were quite well done. Maybe there was a little too much focus on what the women went through, which they may have, but not at the time depicted.
I'm not familiar with Taraji Henson but I didn't have to be. She became Katherine Johnson for me and that's all that mattered. And a great job she did. Imagine learning all that math! Maybe she had something like cue cards but that couldn't have been easy. Memorizing lines is one thing, but complex math?
I know Octavia Spencer better. The role that stands out the most for me was a nurse for troubled teens in a short-lived series. Here she inspired confidence and wouldn't let anyone stop her. Did Dorothy Vaughan really get the computer (machine) to work when no one else could? Who cares? It was great to watch. And she taught the women she "supervised" very well. At least the way this movie tells the story, the women taught those men a thing or two.
Janelle Monae was also inspiring but we didn't get to see much of what she did, and we should have.
The strikes meant CBS had to have a backup plan until scripted series were ready. As a result, I've come to see a very different Kevin Costner than the good but tough guy depicted in this movie. But the rich ranch owner was actually a good guy too. How can Costner be anything else? Here, he was threatening people but being very reasonable, with justified demands for changes that should have taken place. People were warned about him but his demanding nature was actually not scary.
And Jim Parsons did what he does so well: Playing an intelligent jerk who hates being told he's not perfect. Although I'm used to a more likable version who is at the same time quick to insult his inferiors. Here, his character doesn't really seem all that smart because Katherine Johnson seems to do his job better than he does, and that's just not right! But we know he must be good at his job in order to be one of the elite, and we just don't get to see it.
Glen Powell (interesting coincidence) made a great John Glenn.
The man Katherine ended up marrying was too nice and too good looking to be believed. Good job, though. Her kids were also likable too.
I won't give away too much but one of the final scenes will have you on the edge of your seat like with the events of Apollo 13. Amazing! And all of the scenes showing news coverage of the space program were quite effective. I will say I was expecting more, but this movie focuses on a much shorter time period than I had expected.
Great looking cars, though I would have been happier with older cop cars. Both cop cars shown (might have been the same one twice) were from several years after the events of the movie, and by that time cars didn't look quite as good.
Family friendly? I did see that the movie was edited for TV, and there's nothing too concerning in what I saw. Kids in school should see this as part of their education.
Regardless of whether it was real history, it was a fine effort.
I was not watching this to see African American women experiencing discrimination and not being taken seriously (although I halfway expected women not to be taken seriously). I watched this to see strong intelligent women accomplishing a lot for the U. S. space program. And to some extent, I saw that. Maybe things didn't happen quite the way the movie says they did, but the scenes with Katherine Johnson doing the complicated math were quite effective. And I learned about a group of women called "computers" back when people hadn't yet learned to think of the word as referring to machines. I may have learned details of the specifics of discrimination and the protests that I didn't know.
Most of the scenes showing the women being treated as less than equal never happened, but if we pretend they did then they were quite well done. Maybe there was a little too much focus on what the women went through, which they may have, but not at the time depicted.
I'm not familiar with Taraji Henson but I didn't have to be. She became Katherine Johnson for me and that's all that mattered. And a great job she did. Imagine learning all that math! Maybe she had something like cue cards but that couldn't have been easy. Memorizing lines is one thing, but complex math?
I know Octavia Spencer better. The role that stands out the most for me was a nurse for troubled teens in a short-lived series. Here she inspired confidence and wouldn't let anyone stop her. Did Dorothy Vaughan really get the computer (machine) to work when no one else could? Who cares? It was great to watch. And she taught the women she "supervised" very well. At least the way this movie tells the story, the women taught those men a thing or two.
Janelle Monae was also inspiring but we didn't get to see much of what she did, and we should have.
The strikes meant CBS had to have a backup plan until scripted series were ready. As a result, I've come to see a very different Kevin Costner than the good but tough guy depicted in this movie. But the rich ranch owner was actually a good guy too. How can Costner be anything else? Here, he was threatening people but being very reasonable, with justified demands for changes that should have taken place. People were warned about him but his demanding nature was actually not scary.
And Jim Parsons did what he does so well: Playing an intelligent jerk who hates being told he's not perfect. Although I'm used to a more likable version who is at the same time quick to insult his inferiors. Here, his character doesn't really seem all that smart because Katherine Johnson seems to do his job better than he does, and that's just not right! But we know he must be good at his job in order to be one of the elite, and we just don't get to see it.
Glen Powell (interesting coincidence) made a great John Glenn.
The man Katherine ended up marrying was too nice and too good looking to be believed. Good job, though. Her kids were also likable too.
I won't give away too much but one of the final scenes will have you on the edge of your seat like with the events of Apollo 13. Amazing! And all of the scenes showing news coverage of the space program were quite effective. I will say I was expecting more, but this movie focuses on a much shorter time period than I had expected.
Great looking cars, though I would have been happier with older cop cars. Both cop cars shown (might have been the same one twice) were from several years after the events of the movie, and by that time cars didn't look quite as good.
Family friendly? I did see that the movie was edited for TV, and there's nothing too concerning in what I saw. Kids in school should see this as part of their education.
Regardless of whether it was real history, it was a fine effort.