{"id":6196,"date":"2011-09-06T13:56:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T19:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flovalleynews.com\/?p=6196"},"modified":"2011-09-06T13:56:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T19:56:15","slug":"movie-review-apollo-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flovalleynews.com\/?p=6196","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Apollo 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

3-D is More Annoying Than Enhancing in ‘Apollo 18<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Maggie Scott<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Right Stuff becomes the Fright Stuff in Apollo 18<\/em>, the new thriller from director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and writer Brian Miller.\u00a0 This low-budget ($5 million), 88-minute effort both profits from and suffers from the \u201cgimmick\u201d syndrome that has plagued so many 3-D releases whose technology annoys (those awful glasses!) rather than enhances the viewing experience.<\/p>\n

In the case of Apollo 18,<\/em> whose opening half-hour or so is exceptionally intriguing, the gimmick is the so-called \u201cfound footage\u201d style of story-telling (think Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity), where the viewer is told that what he or she is seeing is \u201creal\u201d footage taken by the story\u2019s protagonists; in this case, \u201cuploaded\u201d 16 mm film of NASA\u2019s ill-fated and never \u201cofficially\u201d acknowledged 1974 moon mission.<\/p>\n

With few exceptions, the drama unfolds either before NASA cameras, pre-launch and the on-board cameras of the command vehicle Freedom, flown by Mission Commander John Grey (Ryan Robbins), or before the 16mm cameras of astronauts Benjamin Anderson (Warren Christie) and Nathan Walker (Lloyd Owen). The exceptions are \u201chome movies\u201d of the astronauts partying with girlfriends and wife and son; and brief segments from the director\u2019s POV—for example, a high-angle, panoramic shot of the astronauts in the lunar landscape.<\/p>\n

For anyone who remembers the grainy, flickering films and crackling audio transmissions of the thrilling early years of space flight\/travel, the opening sequences of Apollo 18<\/em> are undeniably engrossing,\u00a0because the scenes seem like dead ringers for the historical coverage.<\/p>\n

Of course, it has to be acknowledged here that some of what you are watching is the actual historical coverage culled from NASA\u2014so-called \u201cstock footage\u2014 like a rocket launch, the cratered moon surface filmed by the orbiting command vehicle, the moon landing, the earth filmed from the moon, and so forth. This stock footage is very skillfully spliced into film shot in British Columbia on an amazingly true-to-life surface of the moon \u201cset.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, all goes swimmingly (or, floatingly) in the build-up scenes, which include the astronauts talking pre-launch about such gung-ho, patriotic things as bringing back a moon rock for the kid and the mission needing to be \u201cresults-oriented\u201d to \u201cbeing proud to do it for these guys and for my country.\u201d Sadly, the gimmick here proves to be a big tease; amazing foreplay without a climax.<\/p>\n

While touching on a great plot twist involving the Soviets and the space race the U.S. supposedly won, and injecting the proceedings with nefarious and ultimately deadly maneuverings by the U.S. Department of Defense involving \u201cnational security\u201d (\u201cWhat are we really doing up here,\u201d asks the na\u00efve, and, by this time, terrified astronaut), the story sinks into an \u201calien\u201d storyline quagmire.<\/p>\n

With just a little more imagination and effort, this could have been a great sleeper hit that uses the gimmick to serve the story and the movie-going experience, instead of the story serving the gimmick. A Dimension<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3-D is More Annoying Than Enhancing in ‘Apollo 18 By Maggie Scott The Right Stuff becomes the Fright Stuff in Apollo 18, the new thriller from director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and writer Brian Miller.\u00a0 This low-budget ($5 million), 88-minute effort both profits from and suffers from the \u201cgimmick\u201d syndrome that has plagued so many 3-D releases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nMovie Review: Apollo 18 - 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