Gripping story professionally rendered

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2005)

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
I don't think it matters whether you remember the story of the Apollo 13 space mission or not. Whether you know the ending or whether you were otherwise occupied at the time in 1970, the tension created and maintained by the fine script (by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert with uncredited help from John Sayles) and the direction of Ron Howard will compel your interest. And when the resolution comes it will command your emotions.
Part of the success of this movie goes to the fine acting by Tom Hanks, who is, in a professional and psychological sense, very much like those fly boys with the Right Stuff who fearlessly left our comfort cocoon here on earth and ventured into the cold, dark airlessness of space for glory and honor and maybe for proof of their manhood. Like the astronauts depicted, Tom Hanks is always on task and always delivers an arresting and believable performance.
Ed Harris, who played the flight director in Houston was also excellent as was Kevin Bacon as the replacement astronaut who had to fly the ship. In fact the entire cast, especially a whole lot of people with small roles as part of the nearly anonymous support techno nerds at NASA, gave believable and compelling performances. A lot of the credit for that has to go to Ron Howard, who made sure that they all looked the way they were suppose to look. After all, they were engaged in the success or failure of the mission in the most immediate sense.
I also was very much moved by the musical score by James Horner. When you have an extraterrestrial epic, you need the music of the spheres, and Horner provided that. The music was so triumphantly married to the events and to the cosmic adventure, that it inspired without drawing undue attention to itself. It is one of the most beautiful film scores I have ever heard.
Although this was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, it won only two, for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. Perhaps the movie was considered too much of a purely commercial venture at the time (and because of the budget it was largely that of course), and perhaps Howard's direction and intention seemed very much by the book. However I think the final result turned out to be more than some thought when it was released in 1995. It is a heroic epic, with a worthy theme, professionally done. Everybody worked hard for veracity and they certainly convinced me. Nonetheless there is perhaps something missing here. Although the sheer horror of dying in the cold vacuum of space or being burned up by a too rapid descent into the atmosphere is kept very much on our minds, there is a level of psychological reality that lives within the heart and soul of the astronaut and within the astronaut's family that was attempted here but not entirely achieved.
See this for Ron Howard who did a great job as director and for Tom Hanks, one of the most charismatic actors of our time, and especially for astronaut Jim Lovell who lived it and (with help from Jeffrey Kluger) wrote the book Lost Moon (1994) upon which the film was based.