I don't understand how launches into space could become so blas? after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I for one find it exciting to see footage of astronauts floating weightless thousands of miles above the earth, and it's amazing that society has become so indifferent so quickly to the space program. We opt for game shows and "reality television", when the work being done above our own planet can be equally fascinating. One of the most heart-wrenching moments in Ron Howard's Apollo 13 is when we see astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) hamming it up in front of the camera for what they believe is a nationally televised broadcast being watched by millions of people back home. In reality, none of the networks are interested enough in the launch or the mission to air it, so it becomes a private viewing for a select few family members and no one else. And this was in April of 1970, only nine months after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
It's one of several intricate details in the movie that makes it an intense and meticulous piece. While no one could have predicted the leaps and bounds technology would have made over the past 30 years, the real strength of Apollo 13 is how it demonstrates no one could truly have predicted that three astronauts stranded in outer space could have gotten back home with the limited technological resources they had in 1970. The ending plays like a miracle, and history will surely remember it as one.
As directed by Ron Howard, the film emotes a kind of documentary feeling. It opens with the team of Lovell, Haise and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) being chosen for, and training for, the ill-fated trip to the moon. As we see the glint in the team's eyes, their dreams become increasingly palpable. You can almost taste Lovell's desire to walk on the moon, and you can almost feel Mattingly's disappointment when he is rejected for the mission (there is a remote chance he may contract measles). It's always about people.
The picture is a blend of human drama and suspense, but it only really gets going (and works best) when depicting the MacGyver-like solutions devised for the astronauts by Mission Control back home. Headed by Gene Kranz (Ed Harris in a powerfully subdued and amiable role), in one revealing scene the team dumps a box on a table that comprises every last usable article to be found inside the shuttle (including the socks on the astronauts' feet).
I saw Apollo 13 in theatres when it first came out, and I enjoyed it because the veritable shivers I experienced due to the indoor air conditioning complimented the cold atmospheres inherent in the film. The idea of being abandoned forever in space is one of the most chilling concepts of all, and that experience is successfully realized in this ambitious yet often warming film.
