Review

'Hidden Figures' is a riveting tale about civil rights

"Hidden Figures" is the untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, brilliant African American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind helping launch astronaut John Glenn into orbit.

Now, most of you who will have wanted to see this movie have by now. But the rest of you who didn’t plan on seeing it or were on the edge, you need to go see it. "Hidden Figures" is one of the most powerful and entertaining films that has to deal with sexism and racism within the workforce.

"Hidden Figures" is more than just the battle of civil rights. It is the story of humanity and the struggle for basic human rights, the ability to have the same chance and opportunities as everyone else. This movie doesn’t try and push many boundaries, but rather just tells a good story. It does it so well that it feels like it’s a story that has never been told before. This for me was one of the best civil rights/sexism/racism movies that I have ever seen.

"Hidden Figures" would be nothing without its fantastic cast. Octavia Spencer has received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, which was to be expected (but she won’t win). She is really the people’s choice when it comes to this category because, in all honesty, she was outdone by the other two supporting ladies Taraji P. Henson and Janelle Monáe.

Not to take anything away from Spencer, but the other two ladies simply had more to work with and were much more powerful emotionally than she was. I was very surprised by the Academy’s pick, but I'm just glad someone got recognized.

Alongside the main ladies, we have the man that should win Best Supporting Actor, Mahershala Ali ("Moonlight"), Kevin Costner (it is great to see him doing something good again), Jim Parsons (Bazinga!) and Kirsten Dunst. This amazing group of actors and actresses deserved to win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, they truly did.

I am very happy to see how well "Hidden Figures" has done in the box office. It recently crossed over the $100 million mark ($25 million to make), which is really good for a cast that focuses on leading ladies to do the heavy lifting. For some stupid reason, female lead films never seem to do as well in the box office but I am very happy to see that wasn’t the case with this film. 'Hidden Figures' deserves all the recognition that it is getting.