Enlarge / Young Stan, the star of Apollo 10 ½, is voiced by newcomer Milo Coy. As an adult, Stan is voiced by Jack Black. After School of Rock and Bernie, this is Black's third film with Linklater, making him an unlikely, late-career avatar for the Houston-born filmmaker. He's the DiCaprio to Linklater's Scorsese. (credit: Netflix)
The new Netflix film Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood is a magic trick. It has no stakes, no conflict, no villain, no love interest, no money problems, and no one learns anything. Yet, by some miracle, it's engaging throughout. I hesitate to describe it as the story of a boy named Stan (newcomer Milo Coy) who grew up next to the Manned Spacecraft Center during the Apollo program. Why? Because "story" implies actions leading to other actions, and that's not what Apollo 10 ½ is about. To quote Homer Simpson, "It's just a bunch of stuff that happened."
The movie is the work of filmmaker Richard Linklater, who, like Stan, was born and raised in Houston. Apollo 10 ½ is Linklater's Roma or Belfast: a semi-autobiographical love letter to the time and place that formed him. (He could have called it Clear Lake.) Perhaps its closest analog is The Tree of Life by fellow Texan Terrence Malick. Both films involve children playing in mists of DDT amid "long summer days of play and idleness" while cosmic things they don't fully comprehend happen nearby.
Air Bud, meet space Stan
Apollo 10 ½ is narrated by an adult Stan (Jack Black, Jumanji) in the present day, and the result is like a better version of something you might hear in a bar. Adult Stan tells things out of order, goes on about extraneous details, and introduces characters but forgets to do anything with them. All the while, in the background, humans are about to land on the Moon. Imagine a Linklater classic like Slacker or Dazed and Confused, then add the Texas space race and a sprinkle of rotoscoped psychedelia, and you get the idea.
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