Review of Apollo 13 (1995) by Patrick E — 16 Aug 2009

Ron Howard has made an excellent docu-drama based on the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon landing mission which suffered serious mechanical problems and the very real threat of not making it home. Howard has to take all the credit for sticking to what really happened and not trying to over dramatise the true events of the mission. It never gets too patriotic and overly emotional; it's just a great account of one of NASA's most disastrous missions.

The Apollo 13 mission suffered an explosion after a routine stirring of the oxygen tanks, which left the three man crew, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, in a serious fight for their lives. It took the endurance of the crew and the help of hundreds of people in mission control to get them back safely. The cast is excellent, Tom Hanks, Kevin bacon, Bill Paxton and Gary Sinise or on top form but it's Ed Harris, as the Mission Control Chief, that steals the show with a brilliant performance. The effects are top notch, even the CGI effects for the Rocket Launch look excellent and better than many of today?s films which is quite an achievement given this film was made in 1995. There is plenty of actual footage from the event interspersed with the films footage. The pace is perfect which keeps the tension levels high throughout. The only real downfall of the film, which ironically is not the film makers fault, is that we can only feel so much tension at the situations as we already know that the crew all made it back safely. Huge praise has to be given to Howard for managing to make the film so gripping given its background.

Apollo 13 really is an inspirational and excellently made film with pure entertainment throughout.