Review of Apollo 13 (1995) by Diego Alejandro N — 23 Feb 2013

The Year is 1969. Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) are the team of astronauts who are scheduled to fly to the moon as part of the Apollo 13 mission. But Mattingly is ruled out, on account of him being sick. They instead bring in Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) as the third member of their team. They blast off.

And this movie is just getting started.

Not much can be said about the masterpiece that is Apollo 13, because words won't be able to do it justice. It's that good. Hanks, Bacon, and Paxton put forth some of the best performances ever, and Sinise and Ed Harris as the mission control leader don't do a bad job, either.

The movie does such a great job of authenticity, which is the best thing I can say to explain why it's so good. We feel like this is perfectly legit, like this is exactly what happened, word for word. It seems plausible to us. Unlike the recently released Apollo 11, which was totally unrealistic and not well done, Apollo 13 seems like it could have been footage taken from the space shuttle by Lovell, Haise, and Swigert themselves.

Bottom Line: This mission was made possible using technology that can be found in today's iPhones. So why are we not flying to the moon everdyday nowadays? Because people aren't interested, it's become too routine. But Apollo 13, this flawless masterpiece, makes us look back on the idea and care about it.