Moonwalkers

(Image credit: © Icon Films)

This comedy, starring Rupert Grint, concocts a goofy slapstick scenario out of the famous conspiracy theory that director Stanley Kubrick faked the footage of the moon landings

This comedy, starring Rupert Grint, concocts a goofy slapstick scenario out of the famous conspiracy theory that director Stanley Kubrick faked the footage of the moon landings.

It's 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket is about to launch and the CIA wants a backup in case the mission flops. Ron Perlman's Vietnam-flashback-suffering agent gets dispatched to London to recruit 2001: A Space Odyssey director Kubrick for the job, but somehow winds up instead with Rupert Grint's floundering rock manager and his permanently spaced-out actor flatmate (Robert Sheehan).

Events get increasingly farcical, climaxing with East End gangsters and an army of CIA agents both converging on the arty mansion commune where the sham footage is being shot.

Director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet and writer Dean Craig rather overdo the hippie-stoner gags and they don't stint on the cartoonishly gory violence, either. But Grint and Perlman are great fun and the movie's sheer verve keeps things rolling.

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