A Wonderful True Adventure

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2002)

To my mind, "Apollo 13" is Ron Howard's masterpiece. That it is a largely factual retelling of an historic event makes it even more remarkable. I was riveted from beginning to end. Tom Hanks, as Jim Lovell, and Gary Sinese, as Ken Mattingly, were perfectly cast. Nobody puts images on film that tell a story dramatically and well better than Ron Howard. In this connection, the reason that the sequences showing the astronauts floating were so effective is that the actors really were weightless. Howard arranged to have airlines fly parabolar orbits so that a little more than twenty seconds of weightlessness could be achieved, during which time he filmed the weightlessness sequences. 10 out of 10. Highly recommended.