Apollo 18

Hi everybody, this week let met talk you about an other movie, a different kind one, its name is Apollo 18. This is an american-canadian science-fiction / horror movie produced by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego in 2011. It has a budget of 5 millions dollars (not too much for this kind of movie) and generated 25 millions dollars on the box office which is great. It last about 80 minutes.

I have to say right now, it's an onboard camera movie, this sub gender of cinema is really controversial because it can be misused (Cloverfield for example) or launch a strong feeling of anxiety and proximity with characters, even realistic terror (Cannibal Holocaust). For Apollo 18, I can say it's a bit of both.

This wrong documentary is based in the Apollo 18 mission who was cancelled for budgetary reasons in 1970. The movie support however that the mission was conducted secretly, by sending three cosmonauts with the official mission is to install monitoring equipment against russians, but informally to collect “moon stones”. So the movie take its time with the moon landing and the installation and here come “the stressful elevator”, it means a series of shady events which put characters and spectators uncomfortable (moves, unknown footsteps, radio cuts...). The discover of a russian module with blood everywhere does not help the nerves of our brave astronauts.

I must wait the half of the movie to envisage an extraterrestrial theory since where some critters appears by the way of fast plans. The situation degrades slowly but surely ; characters start a psychological descent, with one of the cosmonaut which, of course, is contaminated and goes crazy. The situation need now drastic decisions and our poor spacemen will try to go back on Earth, but the NASA refuses of course by risks of infection and prefer let them rot in space.

Unfortunately the end stay predictable with a conspiracy theory, to the effect that the government was aware since the beginning and send them there as testers.

Finally the movie finish with a scene which honors men of this program, and which try to make us believe that the government lies in the entire story supported by the website “lunartruth.com” (The problem is that it's only a promotional website for the movie)

To talk a bit much about the production, the onboard camera principle can be good or not, but in this movie, a wrong documentary, it was necessary to be realistic because there is no doubt that Apollo missions don't bring a whole producing crew, so the only way were the onboard camera.

It is still efficient, with a general montage of black and white plans of poor quality to comfort the realism. Moreover, transitions are a bit sudden but it's not a big deal. The special effects are correct, the infection is not that bad even if the enemies are not really convincing (but don't worry, we don't see them too much). I also noticed the use of flashes as lights, a great tool, even if the saga Saw already popularised it.

Then, the actor performance is really correct, I didn't pour liters of tears, but at least I didn't break my TV because of bad role play. Concerning the characters, those one have a realistic behavior in general, keep their calm in good professional, observe their environment, draw objectives conclusions and finally decide to sacrifice themselves when they feel their end arrive.

To conclude, as I already said, a sympathetic wrong documentary on Apollo 18 mission, well manage in the beginning (omnipresent suspense and intelligent characters for once). But the end stay too predictable with a hype of the conspiracy theory towards the government. It's a kind of Blair Witch Project in space, i'm not shouting at the miracle but either at the crap.

I will give a 4 out of 10 for this movie not as bad as we can think. 

Valentin