Cheap Apollo 13 (DVD) (Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris) (Ron Howard) Price

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Customer Reviews of Apollo 13

Ron Howard captures the spirit and reality of the Apollo era in an amazingly accurate and entertaining film. There are certain sacrifices in accuracy for dramatic value, but overall, the message and story are delivered intact. The work and attention to detail put into this film is phenomenal.

The DVD release doesn't disappoint. This was one of the first "fully-loaded" discs before special edition releases became common. First is a very interesting an informative documentary on the making of the film. There's not one, but two commentary tracks included (one with director Ron Howard, and one will real-life hero Jim Lovell and wife Marilyn). Commentaries are my favorite aspect of the DVD format, because they allow the director and/or people who worked on the film to provide the viewer with their own personal perspective on their work. Both of these commentaries are informative and interesting.

The acting is great. The story is great. The DVD is great. Pick this up - you won't be sorry.

"Houston, We've Got A Problem..."
Those words are the tag line for every fictionalized account of space exploration disaster, but the one time they were spoken in earnest makes all the fictionalized accounts wane like the setting moon.

APOLLO 13 is a great film. Tom Hanks, who plays Jim Lovell, spacecraft Commander of the aptly-named "Odyssey" really deserved an Academy Award for this one (and might have gotten it, had he not already won previously, two years running).

The film recounts the terrifying ordeal of astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), their families, and their ground-based support crew, after an oxygen tank explosion on the third lunar landing mission forces an abort. The three men have to reduce their spacecraft to barely livable conditions in order to survive a quarter-million miles from home.

Director Ron Howard captures the tension of the event perfectly, and also recaptures the ambience of NASA in 1970, a mixture of energy, technical competence, and frustration, when it seemed the American public had just about forgotten it's once lionized space program in the wake of moon missions so successful they seemed absolutely boring.

For anyone old enough to remember those fearsome days of Apollo 13, as I do, this movie sparks memories. For a moment in time, the planet was united: besides the Western Powers, the Soviets, the Red Chinese, the North Koreans and North Vietnamese set out rescue vessels to retreive the returning men.

With barely enough electricity to run a toaster, limited water, no heat, and hardly any oxygen, the three astronauts faced almost certain death. Ron Howard captures their understated emotion, as well as their phenomenal resilience and test-pilot cool, without making them seem miraculously superhuman or unassailably cold-blooded.

Bacon's Swigert, a last-minute replacement to the crew can't help but gloat over his good luck, and then becomes increasingly waspish as the disastrous mission winds on.

Gary Sinise, as Ken Mattingly, grounded for an illness he'd never contracted, is at first embittered, but later becomes an enthusiastic fourth crew member as he unstoppably tests out rescue scenario after rescue scenario in the NASA simulators.

Bill Paxton plays an increasingly ill Fred Haise with such conviction that the viewer shudders with compassionate sympathy as Fred's flu and fever make him both less able to contribute and less willing to give in to his sudden illness.

Kathleen Quinlan, as Marilyn Lovell, and Ed Harris, as Gene Krantz, both turn in true-to-life performances, both of which capture the hopes and fears not only of Mrs. Lovell and Flight Controller Krantz, but of the rest of the hundreds of people involved in the rescue effort on the ground.

Without becoming "documentary" the film uses clips of actual news broadcasts to underscore its reality. What's particularly surprising is the low-tech state of the Apollo; a digital wristwatch of today has more computing power than the entire Apollo space vehicle. This movie is also a very watchable, almost completely accurate history. There are a few moments of Directorial license in the telling of the tale, but not many. The story doesn't need additional drama. I recommend Jim Lovell's excellent book LOST MOON (or APOLLO 13), to sort out the occasional changes.

As it was, the technology of Apollo both failed and succeeded beyond reckoning. As spectacular an accomplishment as a moon landing is, it pales besides the importance of the human drama.

"I don't care what anything was designed to do," barks Krantz at one point, "I only want to know what it can do." It seems that Jim Lovell's mother has the answer: "If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."

APOLLO 13 is a great testament to the human spirit.

Nothing Wrong w/ a Little Flag Waving I Guess
Kind of silly in its awesome patriotic seriousness but genuinely heartfelt. Give them a few points for meaning well. Goshdarnit! We Americans are so honest and hardworking and ingenious. Just one big country of stand up folks. We can overcome any crisis no matter how dire just through our sheer AmeriCANism. All American men are apparently boy scouts at heart. Not entirely surprising this was directed by Opie/Richie Cunningham. Mr Hollywoodized American Family Values himself. Hanks and Sinese manage the difficult tasks of portraying humorless stiffs who are also sympathetic characters. The actual crisis is quite suspenseful and very well plotted and FX are very cool.