Hidden Figures was... solid.
Taraji P. Henson (Katherine Johnson), Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughn) and Janelle Monáe (Mary Jackson) all turn in excellent performances as brilliant women that have to overcome an openly racist and sexist work environment while trying to do their patriotic duty and put a man into space.
The film has a ton of charm and is slickly shot and edited, the pacing is decent despite this half-baked romance they threw in. Granted it's a historical piece, but that subplot felt kind of underdeveloped.
I'd say my biggest problem with this film is that it's so clearly Hollywoodized, if you've watched an Oscar bait movie about adversity before, you've seen this plot structure. Barriers to success are established early, barriers are overcome, there's a happy ending. It's just so glossy and picture perfect it defies belief, I would've preferred to see something a little closer to reality, none of these characters seem to have a single substantive flaw. For instance, in the Imitation Game, Alan Turing was a more interesting character because he was kind of an asshole, a flawed genius that also deals with discrimination for who he is. Giving us something to latch onto that humanized the characters more would’ve made the film even better.
Still, I'm confident most people will enjoy this film regardless, it’s fairly by the numbers but what it does do, it does exceedingly well. The film is worth watching to cement these three women in our collective memories at the very least.
8/10 Stellar