It's Just A Number

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2008)

Having said that, the bizarre series of events associated with Apollo 13's ill-fated attempt to reach the moon might be enough to cause anyone to become superstitious. The flight was Apollo 13; it took off on April 11, 1970 (4/11/70 - the individual numbers add up to 13) at 13:13 hours; the explosion that crippled the ship occurred on April 13 at 19:13 hours CST. It goes on and on. But it's just a number!
For about a 5 year period, Tom Hanks put out a series of absolute blockbuster movies (headlined, of course, by his Oscar-winning performances in "Forrest Gump" and "Philadelphia.") "Apollo 13" has to be included in that list of great movies, although I don't think it quite reaches the height of those two. Hanks is not quite as central to this movie as he was to those Oscar-winners, although he certainly plays the lead as astronaut Jim Lovell, Commander of the mission. This really is an ensemble cast, though, featuring good performances all around, especially from Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon as Lovell's crewmates Fred Haise and Jack Swigert respectively, and from Gary Sinise as Ken Mattingly, who was originally scheduled to be Apollo 13's pilot, but was replaced by Swigert due to a health concern.
The performances have to carry the movie, because this is such a well-known event that there's not all that much suspense involved, and the performances are all very good. The chain of bizarre events afflicting Apollo 13 seems to have been pretty faithfully recreated (right down to a typhoon warning for the splash-down area), and even given the fact that I know, obviously, how this turns out, the end is still emotional. This is a good movie - not Hanks' best, but definitely one of his really good ones from that 5 year period of real super-stardom, when no one else in Hollywood could hold a candle to him. 7/10