Let's talk about populist entertainment. Because that's what this is. YEs, it's in Oscar Season, yes, it's based on a true story (although the true story is bent a fair few ways - virtually none of the events depicted occur when they historically happened beyond the timeline of NASA and Russian space launches), yes it features some fairly talented actresses. But this is not a film of particular depth. What it does have is a hell of a lot of charisma from the central trio (Janelle Monae in particular pops off the screen - I'm a fan of her music and I'm hoping that cinema finds many wonderful things to do with her over the next couple of years), a very funky soundtrack (Pharell Williams is a producer, so of course it is), and plenty of crowd-pleasing "you go girl" moments, even if they may strain credibility more than a tad (it's not screamingly believable, for example, that IBM engineers are unable to program their own computer but one woman who's read a programming textbook can get NASA's computer up to speed in no more than a quick montage).
Look, the roles aren't necessarily much (Octavia Spencer is playing the compassionate motherly one, Taraji P. Henson the nerdiest and Monae the ultra-sexy wannabe engineer), but they're played for all they're worth, and in many ways this is sorta "Steel Magnolias with maths" - it's got a little heart, a little humour and a lot of warmth. It takes a curmudgeon to really hate this.
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