Apollo 13 (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital)

This movie is a dramatization of the very real events of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that was supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the third time. Of course, on the way to the moon, there was an explosion that caused the oxygen tanks to leak out into space, endangering the life of the crew, at which point the mission became a scramble to get the crew back to Earth safely.The movie was directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, the mission commander of Apollo 13. The movie also starred Kevin Bacon as Apollo 13 backup Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert, Bill Paxton as Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise, Ed Harris as White Team Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Gary Sinise as Apollo 13 prime Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly who was supposed to be the pilot on the mission but was scrubbed and replaced with Swigert. The movie is a pretty standard docudrama. Howard, who is a big space enthusiast, was a stickler for getting the technical details correct. While he did change some things for dramatic effect, including the most famous line from the movie, "Houston, we have a problem" (Lovell really said "Houston, we've had a problem"), much of what was shown in the movie happened the way it did in real life. The movie was adapted from Lovell's book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, and he served as a consultant on the movie.For those who get the Blu-Ray, the movie looks and sounds great in HD. The extras include two different commentary tracks, one by Ron Howard, and one with Jim and Marilyn Lovell. There is also a one-hour making-of documentary, a 48 minute TV special that discussed the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union, and a twelve-minute segment from the show Dateline about the movie. So, a lot of bonus material for those who like going through the extras.Overall, the movie is wonderful. It is well written and very well acted, with Hanks and Sinise as the standouts (but the entire cast does a great job). While it is a period piece, and it is made to look as much as possible as things looked at the time of the mission, the movie is timeless and holds up even twenty-plus years after it was made. Whether you are interested in the movie because you are a fan of Ron Howard or one or more of the actors, are into the history of the space program, or are just looking for a good drama to watch, I highly recommend this.

For the over 40 year old viewer, "Apollo 13" recaptures the feeling of America at that time when we were still the "can do" people. As with "The Right Stuff," when there were test pilots who didn't worry about safety too much but just flew by the seat of their pants, you have astronauts here literally using duct tape and other household items to salvage their crippled space capsule and try to get home. I think there is a certain irony that 35 years later we still haven't gone back to the moon, getting the space shuttle up and running is constantly fraught with problems and delays, and now the Chinese, Europeans, Russians, and average millionaire American seems more capable of getting people or equipment up into space than NASA. I think if this Apollo mission took place today, those crew members would probably be doomed. Which makes this film all the more appealing.The entire cast is excellent. The music score beautifully compliments the action. Although beyond the launch there isn't a great deal of physical action, this film is as suspenseful and dramatic as any Alfred Hitchcock film. It is gripping and also inspirational as routine household items (including, quite literally, that duct tape) do get used to cobble together a way to salvage the crippled ship, conserve the remaining oxygen, and power supply (which was barely enough to run a modern day kitchen appliance), and figure a way to get them into the proper orbit to get back into Earth's atmosphere without either being incinerated or bouncing off it and out into space on a one way trajectory into infinity.The effects, particularly the launch, are impressive and realistic and give the feeling they're using real film footage, ie. they don't look like effects. You also feel like you're there. Everything looks very realistic.It seems to me that the film unfairly got a bad rap at the time it was originally released merely because Ron Howard made it. Even if you are not a big space buff, which I'm not although I did like "The Right Stuff" very much, "Apollo 13" is quite entertaining and exciting once it quite literally gets off the ground. It is a little bit of a slow start as characters get introduced and the mission takes shape, but from the moment one of the crew gets bumped from the flight because his medical reveals he has the measles, you begin to get a sense of foreboding of things to come and wonder how this change in crew will affect the mission. It proves to be quite significant.Despite all the drama, there is some witty dialogue from time to time to relieve some of the tension. But above all, the movie shows a positive "can do" quality and optimistic attitude often missing in today's America and NASA despite all our present-day superior technology. Viewed from this perspective, "Apollo 13" the film and the mission are that much more powerful and emotional to watch and I couldn't help but feel a little bit of nostalgia for those earlier days in the American space program.

Great movie!

Great movie