[Jim's daughter wants to go trick-or-treating as a hippie]
Barbara Lovell: Dad, can I please wear this?
Jim Lovell: Sure.
Marilyn Lovell: Jim!
Jim Lovell: No! No, absolutely not.
The story of APOLLO 13 isn't fiction ... it is a dramatic recreation of the actual situation that happened during the Apollo 13 mission to the moon. During the flight to the moon, one of the oxygen tanks on the command module exploded, causing massive system failures. It was on luck and ingenuity alone that the crew of the Apollo 13 mission made it back to Earth alive.
I cannot comment on the story and plot of this film. It was so incredible, that it could not have come from anywhere but real life. The writing also falls under this description, except that there were some moments that seemed a bit false ... a little artificial. The film, though, was filled with drama, emotion, and moments of comedy. An excellent script.
There cannot be enough praise for the actors. Although I cannot really name names at the moment (my local paper doesn't have an ad for the film in it), all were quite convincing in their roles.
Design of the film was consistent with the time period, that being the late 60s/early 70s. A couple of items, however, seemed to be a bit too modern for the time period. The computer text on the screen at Mission Control looked like they came off of an off-the-shelf IBM PS/2, and a few of the controls on the space vehicles looked like they came from the modern-day Space Shuttle. Then again, I am not an expert on space vehicles ... all of this could have been 100% accurate.
There were quite a few visual effects in the film, all of which looked very realistic. Tom Hank's character's daydream of walking on the moon looked as if they actually went to the moon and filmed the scene. All the zero-gee effects were realistic ... because they were actually in zero gravity! They filmed those scenes inside of the training airplane lovingly known as the "Vomit Comet," where the plane goes up to about 35,000 feet and then dives, giving up to 30 seconds of near zero gravity conditions inside the plane. Very well thought out, very well executed.
Ron Howard did a splendid job of directing this film. My only complaint is that there were just a few too many fancy camera moves ... I felt at times I was going to be sick with all the tilts, pans, and zooms the camera was doing.
The music for the film was absolutely PERFECT! From opening credits to the end of the film, the music evoked the right emotions and the right times. Even I, ol' Joey "Stoneheart" Lemur, was brought to tears at times (all quickly blinked back, of course.)
This film contained strong language at times, and was quite emotional. You might want to think twice before bringing children under thirteen to see this film. Teens and older will thoroughly enjoy this film, though.
I cannot recommend this film enough. This will probably win Best Picture at this year's Oscars. It is a stunning film, filled with nail-biting tension and peppered with lighter moments. Go. See it. You'll be glad you did! :-)
By : Ed Powell
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 0
Things don't get much better than APOLLO 13. In the sure hands of director Ron Howard, several dozen actors hit pure notes in capturing the essence of the American spirit without being sentimental, mawkish, or melodramatic. That's a triumph, considering what might have been done with the subject of a military program in pursuit of public relations.
When John F. Kennedy assumed the burden of playing catch-up with the Russians by announcing in 1960 that America would put a man on the moon within a decade, NASA delivered with Neil Armstrong and his crew in 1969. By the following year, when Apollo 13 lifts off for follow-up work on the moon, the feel of anticlimax envelops the mission. In crass dismissal of the effort, the networks refuse to cover it. What could match last year's feat?
What more than matches it is a three-pronged probe into the American psyche. Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) rocket into space on the ill-fated mission that will suddenly rivet national attention when an oxygen tank explodes and puts them in jeopardy. They are trapped in a freezing tank that is filling slowly with lethal carbon dioxide.
On the ground, Mission Control struggles to save them. In superb confirmation of American resourcefulness, Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) and the ground team devise a way to put a square peg in a round hole with canisters and duct tape that are already aboard the ship. They hand the crew a million-to-one solution. Even after Mattingly solves the oxygen problem, the heat shield and parachutes loom as probable catastrophes.
All this unfolds in the early days of the celebrity culture, when the media begins to hound the victims of catastrophe, sharks to blood, the worse the better. It also reveals the paradoxical American reverence for a single life. As much as Americans can kill each other on the highways at the rate of 50,000 a year and shoot each other by the hundreds in schools, when one life, or three in this case, jumps into public jeopardy, the collective national psyche heaves up as savior.
And they did it by talking simply and directly. These astronauts would surely have died if their fate had lain in the self-righteous, self-absorbed verbosity of the 90s. If the images are of puffy space suits and weightless games, the stuff of it is courage and resourcefulness.
The extraordinary rescue is delivered without a false note by Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and a fine supporting cast. Tom Hanks simply has a direct line into the souls of the characters he plays. Kathleen Quinlan conveys beautifully the twin mandates of a 60s woman: support and perform.
In these talented hands, this tale becomes a real white-knuckler that manages also to capture the best of our national essence without waving the flag. It's moving, and it's good.
