Astrophysics Meets John Ford

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2003)

I've seen "Apollo 13" a few times now, and even with two sets of DVD commentary and a fine documentary under my belt, I can't exactly say what took place. They call it a "Main Bus B Undervolt," but whatever the case, it cripples the spacecraft Apollo 13 just as it is about to reach the moon, forcing the crew to abandon their mission and undergo some hasty improvisations in order to make it back to Earth alive.
There's a lot of technical jargon spewed in this film, not as much as was actually uttered on the spacecraft and at Mission Control in Houston, but enough to befuddle those of us who dozed off in science class back in high school. Still, I enjoyed this film, even when I didn't quite understand it.
Tom Hanks stars as steady-in-zero-G Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, successfully underplaying the heroics without losing the dramatic urgency of the moment. Early in the movie, we see him joke with his wife, Marilyn (Kathleen Quinlan) with the sort of easy banter those of us who have followed him since "Bosom Buddies" are accustomed to. There's a funny scene early on, as he watches the Apollo 11 landing with a roomful of simultaneously proud and jealous fellow astronauts, all yelling at the television to abort seconds before Neil Armstrong takes his one small step for man. It's funny because they all wanted to be first on the moon, and also, in a ghoulish kind of prefiguring way, because aborting the mission is exactly what is going to happen to poor Jim.
There's also an early scene between Lovell and his youngest son, when the father is asked if he knew the crew of Apollo 1, who perished in a capsule fire scene in an opening sequence. Hanks answers matter-of-factly, with a mesmerizing combination of steely control and compassion for what his child is experiencing. There's a lot going on under the surface, and while it's my favorite scene, it's easy to miss. Many good moments like that are sprinkled like stardust throughout the picture.
The movie is a fine, solid piece of entertainment, a little loose with the facts but essentially true to what Apollo 13 was about, but what makes this especially recommendable is the DVD, particularly the commentary track by the real Jim and Marilyn Lovell (SPOILER ALERT: He did survive.) At one point, when the film has Hanks imagining himself landing on the moon, the real Marilyn Lovoll audibly breaks down as she describes her sadness that her husband would never have this moment in reality (though what he got instead, however harrowing, turned out to be far more memorable than merely being Moon Man #5.) Jim himself is laconic as he fills in gaps in the storyline and explains where the film took liberties, meanwhile giving us a sense of where Hanks got his character from. For that, and many other reasons, this is a prize DVD for anyone's collection.
A good feeling for the period abounds. We see smoking in the control room, miniskirts, floral upholstery, and ugly shagwall sideburns. The Lovells' oldest daughter has a conniption the day of the launch because the Beatles have just broken up, one of the things the Lovells address as a liberty in their commentary (she wasn't that much of a Beatles fan) but does make sense, because April 1970 was the month Paul McCartney announced the end of the band.
Director Ron Howard piles on the technical detail. He wants us to understand just how tough it was to get Apollo 13 back, on enough power to barely run a coffee machine. He doesn't shirk from showing us a control room that is stacked to the rafters with what Howard himself calls "techno-nerds with pocket protectors" who emerge as real heroes in one of NASA's darkest hours. You have Todd Louiso from "High Fidelity," Val Kilmer's buddy from "Real Genius" (Gabe Jarrett), even Clint Howard, Ron's brother, perhaps filmdom's uber-nerd.
Nepotism is a good thing here. Not only does Clint have a good scene explaining to flight director Ed Harris that the moonshot is kaput and they will have their hands full just bringing the crew home, but their late mother Jean Speegle Howard shines as Jim Lovell's stroke-addled matriarch, delivering two of the film's best lines.
I'm not crazy about "Apollo 13," but I like it a lot, and I find myself liking it more the more I watch it. Ron Howard movies tend to push for maximum uplift, and the manipulation can be annoying, but here he seems to pull back on that while focusing on the human equation at the heart of the story. Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinese and especially Harris and Quinlan give excellent support for one of Hanks' best star vehicles, all the more a vehicle because Hanks serves the story rather than tries to make the story serve him.
Hanks was inspired enough by this experience to do a series of critically-acclaimed mini-films documenting the Apollo program. You might be inspired enough to visit your local library, or do some Googling online. It's not `Gone With The Wind,' but as a history/science lesson, `Apollo 13' is a damn fine piece of work.