Apollo 13 Reviews

This dramatization of a 1970 moon shot crippled by an explosion in space is based on events so inherently dramatic that the story, in Hollywood argot, tells itself. A little human intervention might have helped. Truly a director for the '90s, Ron Howard has mastered the art of spinning big, old-fashioned yarns without any discernible point of view, and his movie is curiously empty and instantly forgettable. It pales alongside Philip Kaufman's flawed but witty THE RIGHT STUFF, and its touchy-feely astronauts feel like New Age anachronisms next to the square-jawed testosterone junkies of Kaufman's conception. Tom Hanks, as mission leader Jim Lovell, works his usual sympathetic magic; the computer-generated special effects are convincing and sometimes grand. In 2002, APOLLO 13 was rereleased theatrically in a digitally remastered IMAX version, the first feature film to undergo this process.