The best film of 1995

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 2003)

Me and my Mom saw this at the theatre in the summer of 1995 and it was such a beautiful satisfying movie experience. I continue to marvel at the skill in which Ron Howard spinned the tale based on the true incident which happened in April 1970. I adore this movie, even to the point of being corny!!! Let me just say that everything, from the music to the period detail, was beautifully brought to life. I loved all the guys in Houston with their 1970-looking hairdos, clothing and horn rimmed glasses, I loved the big honking (now antique looking) TV in the Lovell's living room, I loved Kathleen Quinlan's retro clothing and earrings (she's such a lovely woman and actress) and I loved the acuracy of the rocket, the command module, the lunar module (that spidery looking guy) and the little pod with the parachutes. The cast was absolutely perfect. Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, was brilliant, and brought all the excitement and anticipation...and then disappointment and fear, to life. Bill Paxton is always a joy to watch, portraying astronaut Fred Haise, whose wife is pregnant. Paxton displays a childlike joy in his excitement about "flying in space" for the very first time. Kevin Bacon was quiet and strong as Jack Swigert, a "bachelor" astronaut, and his feelings of guilt over what happened to the spacecraft were very tangible to me. Gary Sinise was a fabulous support as astronaut Ken Mattingly, who was supposed to be the pilot, but was held back from the mission because of exposure to measles. Ed Harris, ahh, Ed Harris. I love this guy. He turned in a fiery, commanding, yet lovely performance as the head of the flight operations in Houston. The stress that Gene Kranz must have been under looked exhausting coming from Harris. While the crew of Apollo 13 awaits a plan for re-entering Earth's atmosphere safely, they encounter problem after problem, loss of power, loss of breathing oxygen, increase in toxic CO2 gas, freezing cold because of the lack of electicity, a kidney infection in Haise, inappropriate weight, velocity and angle for re-entry, and if all that weren't enough, their parachutes might not open and the heat sheild might have been damaged to where the astronauts would be incinerated before they can return to earth!!! Oh yeah, and a typhoon in the south Pacific too!!! This movie is over two hours long, but it is so absorbing, so interesting, and so riveting, that not one milisecond is boring. The supporting cast also features Xander Berkely, Clint Howard, Loren Dean and many other familiar faces whose names escape me, as the hard working, wonderful staff of experts in Houston who were DETERMINED to bring the three men of Apollo 13 home alive. This movie was perfect. I can't say a bad thing about it. It deserved Film Of The Year for 1995 (I don't even remember which film got the award, so it must not have been all that memorable) and I think it is Ron Howard's finest film to date.