Damien Chazelle is an enthusiastic, visually expressive filmmaker with practically nothing of interest to say about the human experience.

First Man doesn't just dwell on its subject's achievements. It takes a beat to glance into Armstrong's personal motivations and vulnerabilities while using technical mastery to tell an engrossing true-life story.

In those sequences when Armstrong is heading for the stars, the approach is so immersive on a sensory level -- cacophonous sound design, juddering cinematography verging on the abstract -- that it almost compensates for the void at the film's core.

First Man is extravagant filmmaking it every way. The craft is sharp. The story is surprising. The emotion is real.