Common Sense Media Review
By Jennifer Green
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Language, '60s-era upheaval in evocative nostalgia trip.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood
What's the Story?
APOLLO 10 ½: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD'S Stan (Milo Coy) is a typical elementary school kid in suburban Houston in 1969. He and his many siblings get along well and, like most of his friends, his dad works at nearby NASA. Only in Stan's telling, he has also been secretly recruited to train to pilot a rocket to the moon. As NASA prepares for the launch of Apollo 11 and the world watches, Stan's family's life marches on to the beat of the times.
Is It Any Good?
This entertaining, semi-autobiographical film is brimming with nostalgia for a simpler time when kids were left to their own devices and society had a reason to come together for a common cause. Have we lost the ability to so broadly share communal emotion, like neighbors did in 1969 when a man first walked on the moon, captured so eloquently in Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood? Richard Linklater seems to be asking the question without posing it directly, just as he wistfully depicts aspects of the late 1960s that were truly less than idyllic, like canned meals, indoor chain-smoking, and social inequalities.
The film intentionally plays with the idea of memory, as Stan's recollection of participating in the Apollo mission suggests, though this is ironically the least engaging part of the tale. The film also combines animation technologies to evoke the time period in a way that is both realistic and simulated. The first half "let me tell you about life back then" exposition is riveting, and viewers of a certain age, in particular, will be transported. Its first-person narration (voiced by Jack Black) is reminiscent of The Wonder Years. Will younger viewers grasp the chills of what it was like to see the first photo of earth from space or watch men walk on the moon on live television? Maybe not, but animating the story and telling it from the perspective of a child represents a remarkably valiant effort at translating a mood across time and, well, space.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the United States' push in the 1960s to be the first to walk on the moon, as seen in Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood. What did this achievement represent to the country and to people at the time? Where could you go for more information about the "space race" of the 1960s?
Stan's mom says memories work to make us sometimes remember seeing things we didn't actually see. How does this play into the film's storyline of Stan's participation in the Apollo mission?
This movie was partially shot as live-action and animated using 2D and 3D techniques. What do you think is the intended effect of the film's look? How would the story have felt different if it weren't animated? How does the look of the film evoke the 1960s?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : March 28, 2022
- Cast : Zachary Levi , Jack Black , Glen Powell
- Director : Richard Linklater
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : STEM , Family Stories ( Siblings ) , History
- Run time : 97 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : some suggestive material, injury images, and smoking
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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