Parents' Guide to Apollo 11

This film is like a historical archive crossed with an IMAX simulator, making viewers feel like they're part of the team that put the first man on the moon. But that process is simultaneously extraordinary and extraordinarily mundane. Director Todd Douglas Miller remasters both new and familiar footage to create a high-definition time machine in Apollo 11, transporting viewers back 50 years to suit up with the astronauts and sit with the spectators on the beach overlooking Kennedy Space Center. The "color" of the day is revelatory in itself: the 5-cent coffee, the hairstyles, the reactions, and some ridiculous promotional RCA paper caps that too many people chose to wear. While the film walks viewers through the entire event as it happened, it doesn't drum up the drama of the valve leak just before launch or even mention the mission's many perilous moments, an odd choice for a movie -- and even odder for a film aspiring to be the definitive record of the event.

Many men (and one woman!) were instrumental in getting astronauts to the moon, and what's wonderfully unique to this documentary is that it introduces so many of the behind-the-scenes figures who made it happen -- in fact, they get equal, if not more, on-camera time than the astronauts. But there are just so many NASA employees that it can be overwhelming -- and difficult to understand what each one brought to the project. The resulting perception, at least to kids, will be a lot of men in white shirts and black ties looking at monitors and talking in muffled radio transmissions. The film's phenomenal shots of Earth and the glorious time spent on the moon will be astonishing to older viewers, but the GoPro set may feel like they've seen this story already -- without the obstructed view from the space capsule window. As much as enthusiastic parents will want to take kids to see this film, it's likely to be a more meaningful experience for science buffs and nostalgic Gen Xers and Boomers.