Rated PG-13 for some disturbing sequences and language
Director: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
"Apollo 18" is the latest film belonging to the category often known as "found footage" movies. "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity" are two of the more prominent entries into this bracket. I prefer to expand this grouping to include thrillers that employ an unusual narrative technique to engender the most primal of fear. Movies like "Open Water" and "Buried" come to mind, even though they're not "found footage" but do opt to delineate the horror of specific situations through minimalist filmmaking techniques. I refer to these endeavors as "narrative gimmick movies" which, I admit, does sound like an insult though I don't mean it as such. Indeed, many of the films in this category I found quite involving.
"Apollo 18" is not one of them. The problem, I think, lies in what it takes to make these films a success. The trick to "narrative gimmick movies" is finding a way to circumvent the gimmick, and getting your audience to connect with the main character(s) on a purely gut level; to connect with their fear. This movie does the opposite. It embraces the gimmick much more than the genesis of the horror faced by these three most unfortunate astronauts.
"The Blair Witch Project" was supremely successful in getting me to connect with the budding young filmmakers and their misplaced romanticism toward the occult. The directors there understood that being scary wasn't as important as being involving. What made the situation unsettling wasn't what may or may not have lurked in the forest shadows, but watching those kids lose their sense of direction, see their food supply dwindle, observe the onset of madness as the chances of survival dissipate. Those viewers who denounce "Blair Witch" as not being scary have trouble, I suspect, with the fundamental truth that fear is organic. It needs to be fed. To grow, to intensify. When someone comes up behind you and screams in your ear causing you to jump, that's not fear. It's impulse. The first "Paranormal Activity" understood the difference; it had a few jarring moments, but was fiendishly patient and preyed on viewer imagination. The second "Paranormal Activity" lost sight of the difference; it was little more than a second-rate fun house replete with an onslaught of BANGS and SCREAMS.
But I'm wildly digressing here. Back to "Apollo 18." The movie's most rudimentary misfire is embracing the "found footage" angle to nauseating degrees. We're told at the outset that the film was pieced together from footage uploaded onto a website called lunartruth.com. At the movie's end, the website is again put up on screen just prior to the end credits. (Okay, look... we'll begrudgingly accept the first one as part of the gimmick. But when you put it up a second time... now that's getting a little insulting. Precisely how dumb do the filmmakers think we are here, anyway?)
This "final" mission in the Apollo space program was kept hidden for reasons that become obvious as the story progresses. The three astronauts (played by Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, and Ryan Robbins) were informed that they were only being given need-to-know bits of information (uh-oh) that were authorized not by NASA, but the Department of Defense (oh boy) and that said DOD was overseeing the whole operation (not good) and their communications were to go through said Department (they're screwed). When bizarre happenings take place during the mission, the three men soon find themselves possibly contaminated, in dire need of medical attention, and ultimately cut off from Houston control.
Other problems exist with the movie. It's harder to connect with an astronaut in danger. Of course, we admire the astronauts' courage and resourcefulness, and sympathize as certain government officials betray them. But we don't connect with their situation the way we might with Paul Conroy trapped in a coffin in "Buried" or the young couple afloat in a shark-infested expanse of ocean in "Open Water." There's a difference. Plus, "Apollo 18" just isn't scary, even on its own modest scale. The big reveal involving certain moon rocks... well, let's just say it invites more snickers than shrieks.
The "footage" looks passable enough as stock NASA film. The cinematography by Jose David Montero more or less works on a level of authenticity, although said validity is offset by Patrick Lussier's tendency to edit for dramatic effect. It's all at the service of a concept that just doesn't work. At the end of all films in this category, I am overcome with a sense of sadness. This time, though, it's not because I connected with the characters and felt their pain. It's that I didn't. Big difference.
* * out of * * * * stars
"Apollo 18" is not one of them. The problem, I think, lies in what it takes to make these films a success. The trick to "narrative gimmick movies" is finding a way to circumvent the gimmick, and getting your audience to connect with the main character(s) on a purely gut level; to connect with their fear. This movie does the opposite. It embraces the gimmick much more than the genesis of the horror faced by these three most unfortunate astronauts.
"The Blair Witch Project" was supremely successful in getting me to connect with the budding young filmmakers and their misplaced romanticism toward the occult. The directors there understood that being scary wasn't as important as being involving. What made the situation unsettling wasn't what may or may not have lurked in the forest shadows, but watching those kids lose their sense of direction, see their food supply dwindle, observe the onset of madness as the chances of survival dissipate. Those viewers who denounce "Blair Witch" as not being scary have trouble, I suspect, with the fundamental truth that fear is organic. It needs to be fed. To grow, to intensify. When someone comes up behind you and screams in your ear causing you to jump, that's not fear. It's impulse. The first "Paranormal Activity" understood the difference; it had a few jarring moments, but was fiendishly patient and preyed on viewer imagination. The second "Paranormal Activity" lost sight of the difference; it was little more than a second-rate fun house replete with an onslaught of BANGS and SCREAMS.
But I'm wildly digressing here. Back to "Apollo 18." The movie's most rudimentary misfire is embracing the "found footage" angle to nauseating degrees. We're told at the outset that the film was pieced together from footage uploaded onto a website called lunartruth.com. At the movie's end, the website is again put up on screen just prior to the end credits. (Okay, look... we'll begrudgingly accept the first one as part of the gimmick. But when you put it up a second time... now that's getting a little insulting. Precisely how dumb do the filmmakers think we are here, anyway?)
This "final" mission in the Apollo space program was kept hidden for reasons that become obvious as the story progresses. The three astronauts (played by Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, and Ryan Robbins) were informed that they were only being given need-to-know bits of information (uh-oh) that were authorized not by NASA, but the Department of Defense (oh boy) and that said DOD was overseeing the whole operation (not good) and their communications were to go through said Department (they're screwed). When bizarre happenings take place during the mission, the three men soon find themselves possibly contaminated, in dire need of medical attention, and ultimately cut off from Houston control.
Other problems exist with the movie. It's harder to connect with an astronaut in danger. Of course, we admire the astronauts' courage and resourcefulness, and sympathize as certain government officials betray them. But we don't connect with their situation the way we might with Paul Conroy trapped in a coffin in "Buried" or the young couple afloat in a shark-infested expanse of ocean in "Open Water." There's a difference. Plus, "Apollo 18" just isn't scary, even on its own modest scale. The big reveal involving certain moon rocks... well, let's just say it invites more snickers than shrieks.
The "footage" looks passable enough as stock NASA film. The cinematography by Jose David Montero more or less works on a level of authenticity, although said validity is offset by Patrick Lussier's tendency to edit for dramatic effect. It's all at the service of a concept that just doesn't work. At the end of all films in this category, I am overcome with a sense of sadness. This time, though, it's not because I connected with the characters and felt their pain. It's that I didn't. Big difference.
* * out of * * * * stars
