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Apollo 18 (2011)

DVD Cover (The Weinstein Company)
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Overall Rating 52%
Overall Rating
Ranked #2,255
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Decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where three American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: July 16, 2012
I rather enjoy the cinéma vérité approach of telling a story - I wouldn't go so far as to say that I love them, but I do find myself enjoying them more often than not. For me, the "found footage" way of telling a story in movies like The Blair Witch Project, [REC], and Paranormal Activity usually results in the audience getting more engrossed in the film, but I realize that there are some out there who do not share my opinion and hate the "shakicam" method of storytelling. So, let me throw this out there right now: Apollo 18 is another one of those movies, and it also shares Blair Witch's slow-burning nature. This means that if you don't like movies that were "shot" by the characters found in the film, or if you require visual scares every five minutes and can't appreciate a slow atmospheric build, you can go ahead and stop reading right now.

According to the film, the government publicly cancels the launch of Apollo 18, but they proceed with it a few weeks later as a top secret mission. The astronauts - Ben (Warren Christie), Nate (Lloyd Owen), and John (Ryan Robbins) - aren't even allowed to tell their families why they're leaving them behind, much less go on speaking tours later. They are told that they will be planting surveillance equipment on the moon to deal with those pesky Russians (this takes place in the seventies, remember), and everyone agrees to keep their mouths shut.

The launch goes off without a hitch, and four days later, Ben and Nate find themselves on the moon while John stays behind in the shuttle to pull them out after the mission is complete. At first, everything goes fine: the two complete their assignments, they collect some rock samples to bring back to earth, and they do a bit of exploring of the moon's surface near their pod. This is when they find a Russian pod nearby, and they also find... well, that's enough, I don't want to spoil any of the various reveals.

I will tell you that Apollo 18 is a sci-fi horror flick, and I will also tell you that finding the Russian pod will quickly become the least of their worries. However, as I mentioned above, this is a slow-burning horror movie, and thus, it does not play out as "ten minutes of plot setup and eighty minutes of blood and guts." Once they get to the moon, we quickly realize that something isn't quite right up there, but this is not done by way of immediately showing us the threat; no, it starts out much more subtly than that, with equipment malfunctions, radio interference, and quick glimpses of movement to signal the oncoming terror. Those of you with short attention spans will find the movie to be "boring", but if you enjoyed Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity, you know what to expect.

The film was shot on a relatively low budget of five million, but you really can't tell it based on the visuals. When they get to the moon, you fully believe that they are on the moon: the sets, the vehicles, the costumes, and the backgrounds are extremely convincing, and you're never jarred out of the illusion by an obviously fake set or bad CGI work. I was seriously impressed by this, and I felt that it went a long way in getting me engrossed in what was going on. I could buy that they were on the moon, and thus, I could buy that there could very well be some strange shit that we have never even imagined going down up there.

I also enjoyed the acting, but there's a catch to that statement: each of the three main actors have a handful of "average" scenes, where you can't exactly bitch about them but you're certainly not going to praise them either. However, when things start going south and legitimate acting is required to convey the situations, each of them pulls through and delivers what is expected of them and each of them does it well. Thumbs up in that regard.

Personally, I enjoyed the movie and had a fun time with it. Was it perfect? Nah. Did it have a couple of holes in the plot? Sure. However, it was a very entertaining story, and it had that "what if?" factor that adds a nice degree of credibility to the really good horror movies. So, here's the deal: if you thought that Paranormal Activity was "too slow" and if you found Blair Witch to be "boring", go ahead and skip this one - it's not for you. Now, if you enjoyed those movies and others like them, definitely go ahead and pick this one up... you'll more than likely enjoy it as much as I did. 8/10.
Crispy #1: Crispy - added July 22, 2012 at 10:07pm
It wishes it was Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity. I dug it, but it's nowhere near as effective as those two, and its pacing is certainly not the reason.
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