Matt Johnson directed, cowrote, and stars in this mockumentary about a CIA conspiracy to fake the Apollo 11 moon landing, which NASA officials fear they won’t be able to pull off by the end of the decade as President Kennedy promised. Johnson and Owen Williams, playing “themselves,” are movie-obsessed agents who convince their higher-ups that they can hoodwink the U.S. public, though ultimately Johnson becomes the victim of a cover-up and the whole world watches as Neil Armstrong steps onto the lunar surface. The writer-director has an obvious affection for the period and takes great pains to re-create it, but he does the viewer no favors by starring or by shooting dialogue that sounds like something from an improv-comedy sketch. A send-up like this works far better for a few minutes on the small screen (see Documentary Now! or Drunk History); at feature length it becomes a stylistic exercise, like a kid mugging for the camera through an Instagram filter.
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