Survival Story turned Cinema Gold

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2005)

In April of 1970, three men were sent into space to walk on the moon. Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert are true survivalists of what could have been a complete disaster. They would be the infamous crew of the Apollo 13 space mission.
In Ron Howard's 1995 release of Apollo 13, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon play the crew that would be launched from Cape Canaveral and into history. The flight that went wrong and had Lovell (Hanks) utter those famous words, "Houston, we have a problem". When a routine task aboard their ship goes horribly wrong, these three men are thrown into a life or death situation.
In the shadow of the 1969 lunar landing, the first ever, these men were nobodies to the general public, until "it" happened. With media flocking the Lovell's home, wife Marilyn (Kathleen Quinlan) must muster up all the courage she has and make sure her family keeps it together. She and the whole world waits for the three men to return home safely.
Flight director Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) also has the difficult job of finding a way for these boys to come home. He and his team of experts work around the clock for nearly a week to ensure the safe return of the crew. Every time something seems to be going right, there is another problem. CO2 levels run high, exhaustion, power, and the troubled heat shield are all problems the crew at Houston the crew thousands of miles above Houston confront.
With so much stress and a problem arising every other minute, tension grows on board with the crew. The fact that Jack (Bacon) is replacing what would have been Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) makes the other crew members a little cautious of his skills and his performance levels. They trusted Ken, but Jack is new and since he performed the task the caused the problem, they are very suspicious of him. The men must keep it together if they went to get home in one piece.
This movie shows true courage in one of the worst space accidents the world has ever seen. Howard does a great job of preserving this unbelievable story of bravery and survival. So many times movies about something that actually happened get caught up in computer graphics or try to hard to appeal to everyone when this movie uses better acting, directing, and does have good computer effects as a bonus. This movie lifts off the ground and clears the tower.