Hidden Figures Review

Hidden Figures is the story of the hidden African American mathematicians behind the projects that helped in various ways to secure the success of early NASA flights. It builds a story around each of the individual characters while mainly focusing on "the computer" Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson).

Her initial goal was to check over the math presented by the core task group and eventually displayed herself in a fashion that proved of absolute worth to the team to eventually help them discover some necessary equations. These equations were essential in the planning and execution of the many rocket tests that NASA were performing in order to make it safe enough for a person to attempt.

The second of the core group was Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) that assisted with running the colored computing team and eventually assisted with getting the IBM software running while teaching the initial programming wave on how to use it. The last member was Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) which ended up in the engineering wing while working to get fully certified within that program which was a first in multiple ways.

It's very much a feel good film and that works well for it providing a number of laughs with great genuine moments. It also handled the racism of the time period well though a bit too in your face at the start of the film as it clearly told us despite it being obvious just by being visually seen.

This levels out about halfway through for better effect and it was interesting to see how the group pushed through. It was also a decent time piece while not large in scale, but effective in creating small pockets of the well captured scenes in that era. The movie is also a bit long as I thought that should be mentioned as it may drag at some points though not much time is wasted and it does create a full story for these characters.

The Conclusion

Hidden Figures is not only a feel good film as it does provide some interesting aspects about each member of the group by efficiently following each of their career paths while still focusing on its lead. There were some great charming moments as well that gathered some laughs and it was intriguing to see how NASA figured out the math to get people out into space.

I also found Kevin Costner's character Al Harrison which was head of the task group to be great providing a serious yet optimistic look at what NASA was attempting to accomplish. I enjoyed Hidden Figures finding it to have some solid laughs, moments of triumph and an insightful look at early NASA flights.

Hidden Figures Review at Theater with Standard Viewing
Screening Provided by 20th Century Fox

Rating Overall: 7.4