2 Comments | Add
Rate & Share:
Related Links:
Info:
DVD Shopping Bag: Apollo 18
You missed it, right? By
Robert T. Trate
December 27, 2011
Apollo 18 arrives on Blu-ray and DVD
© Dimension Films
Welcome to the final DVD Shopping bag of 2011. When you peruse the list below you’ll find little in the way of must have titles. The title of the week is Apollo 18. It was a film that landed over Labor Day weekend and went nowhere. Though by all accounts this 5 million dollar movie did turn a profit. It grossed a little over 17 million, however not many people I know saw it. Our own Rob Vaux’s reviewed it and despite his rating I still itched to see this film. That isn’t a knock on Rob. No, it was just the combination of several different things that made a film like Apollo 18 so appealing.
It all started last year when I saw the trailer and the poster. It revealed this was lost footage of a top-secret mission to the moon that was covered up by NASA and the DOD (Department of Defense). Real or not the X-Files/ conspiracy freak inside me was interested. Yet another film, Transformers Dark of the Moon, had a similar premise in which I immediately lost interest upon seeing the huge robots. The poster for Apollo 18 had that iconic footprint with an alien one right next to it. It’s tag line: “There's a reason we've never gone back to the moon” was yet another great incentive to see the film.
Many of you feel as if films made in the “Blair Witch Motif” is tired and a poor excuse for filmmaking. When done poorly it is. Some of you find a film like Cloverfield (2008) a nauseating experience, physically, and that has nothing to do with the story. You just can’t handle the shaky cam. Here it is used as a tool to tell an unknown piece of history. Oh yeah bring it on.
Your question for me is why didn’t I see it in the theater then? Quiet frankly for the same answers you probably hadn’t. The reviews were not good, there were other things to see, and in this economy it comes down to money. If a film is getting universally panned many of us will hold off on it. Which is why Netflix, home video, and the streaming of movies is a great money saver. Since a night out, two tickets, is still going to cost 25 to 30 dollars, I decide to wait. We all want our money’s worth especially if we are not sure about a title. I opted for the home view experience and saved my money.
The prologue of this film states that this was discovered footage from a website called www.lunartruth.com. The site itself was forcibly censored and the hook of conspiracy continues. The film was edited together with interviews, home movies, and the “actual” footage from the Apollo 18 mission. One of the biggest lynch pins in the whole story is believability. First and foremost it falls to the three actors playing the Apollo 18 flight crew. With films like The Right Stuff (1983) and Apollo 13 (1995) setting perfect tones of that era; to not get that right is to instantly lose your audience. If I can’t believe that these are three men of that time then the suspension of disbelief is completely gone.
Thankfully Warren Christie, Ryan Robbins, and Lloyd Owen are not recognizable actors. In short they don’t stick out as to say that is the guy from Friends, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Office. No these three men walk, talk, and look like three astronauts from the Apollo era. Their performances echo more recognizable actors from The Right Stuff and Apollo 13. Yet since this is a “lost” piece of history their unfamiliarity works in spades.
The story itself is as promised by the trailers and the poster. The top-secret mission to the moon is by the numbers until they find a set of footprints different then their own. Human curiosity brings about their down fall, just like every other horror movie, as you sit there screaming “don’t go in there”. Capt. Anderson (Warren Christie) and Cmdr. Walker (Lloyd Owen) discover the remains of a Cosmonaut and his ship. What works here and not in stories like Red Planet (2000) is the time in which it is set. When everything goes wrong these men have to really rely on each other to survive and no one else. There is no beaming them out to McCoy’s sickbay, Data won’t be immune, and Seven of Nine won’t have a Borg solution. This is set in the very real world on the Apollo Missions and not our future. We know what’s available to them. We know the time and means to save someone on the moon isn’t as easy as flipping a switch and rallying the troops. This isolation and distance delivers a fun ride for a story that is usually set on a distance planet flung far into our future.
I didn’t watch the film on a big screen TV. Instead I popped it into my computer and checked it out on a cross-country flight. Perhaps the combination of an enclosed space, watching an R-rated horror movie (with a little kid behind me), and it being “lost footage” added to the experience. Will that change on a TV is something I will have to discover upon a second viewing. Apollo 18 was a tense and fun ride. It is packed with enough small creepy moments to warrant the watch. When aliens are usually revealed in a wide all-encompassing shot showing everything from their big toe to their horns it really does ruin the movie. In this film the filmmakers knew that less is more and use it to their advantage. This was a fun horror movie set in era where this was completely possible. Prompting me to ask, why haven’t we gone back to the moon? Oh yeah, right, because of the aliens.
Top 5 Picks of the Week:
1. Apollo 18 (Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy)
2. Looney Tunes Golden Collection 1-6
3. Sid & Nancy [Blu-ray]
4. 2012 Zombie Apocalypse [Blu-ray]
5. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
ACTION / ADVENTURE / KUNG FU/ THRILLERS / WESTERNS
The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Starring Ian Fleming, Ronald Howard, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce
Armed and Deadly Starring Lisa Varga, Audrey Landers, Diane Ford and Toni Ann Rossi
Brighton Rock Starring Sam Riley, Helen Mirren and Andrea Riseborough
City Under Siege (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Starring Qi Shu, Aaron Kwok and Collin Chou
Consenting Adults/An Innocent Man Starring F. Murray Abraham, Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey
Fistful Of Bullets: A Spaghetti Western Collection (2011)
Heroes Of The Old West (2011)
Inside Out [Blu-ray] Starring Paul Levesque, Michael Rapaport and Michael Cudlitz
In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds Starring Dolph Lundgren, Lochlyn Munro, Michael Teigen
In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds [Blu-ray] Starring Dolph Lundgren, Lochlyn Munro, Michael Teigen
Love Crime Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Patrick Mille and Ludivine Sagnier
ANIME
D. Gray-man: The Complete First Season S.A.V.E. Starring Todd Haberkorn, Luci Christian and Travis Willingham
Eden of the East: Complete Series (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Starring Jason Liebrecht and Leah Clark
Fairy Tail: Part 2 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Starring Cherami Leigh, Todd Haberkorn, Christopher R. Sabat
Guyver: Complete Box Set S.A.V.E. Starring Andrew Love, Brian Jenson and Chris Patton
Heroic Age: The Complete Series S.A.V.E. Starring J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass and R. Bruce Elliot
Himawari: Too Season 2 Collection (2011)
Slayers: Complete Seasons 4 & 5 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Starring Lisa Ortiz, Eric Stuart and Veronica Taylor
CARTOONS
Archer: Season 1 [Blu-ray] (2011)
Archer: Season 2 (2011)
Archer: Season 2 [Blu-ray] (2011)
Looney Tunes Pepe Le Pew Collection (2011)
Happiness Is Peanuts: Friends Forever (2011)
COMEDY AND LOVE Mania Style
Dutch Starring Ethan Embry, Christopher McDonald and Ed O'Neill
HORROR
2012 Zombie Apocalypse Starring Ving Rhames, Taryn Manning, Lesley-Ann Brandt
2012 Zombie Apocalypse [Blu-ray] Starring Ving Rhames, Taryn Manning, Lesley-Ann Brandt
Chop Starring Will Keenan, Timothy Muskatell, Ricardo Gray and Max Haaga
Final Destination 5 (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) Starring Emma Bell and David Koechner
Final Destination 5 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy) Starring Emma Bell and David Koechner
Hostel: Part III Starring Thomas Kretschmann, Zulay Henao, Sarah Habel and Kip Pardue (2011)
MODERN CLASSICS on BLU-RAY
Sid & Nancy [Blu-ray] Starring David Hayman, Gary Oldman and Andrew Schofield
SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY
Apollo 18 (2011)
Apollo 18 (Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy) (2011)
TV LAND
Bonanza: Adventures With The Cartwrights Starring Michael Landon, Bill Clark, Lorne Greene
The Borgias: The First Season Starring David Oakes, Luke Pasqualino, Ronan Vibert and Jeremy Irons
The Borgias: The First Season [Blu-ray] Starring Jeremy Irons, François Arnaud, Holliday Grainger
Shameless: The Complete First Season Starring William H. Macy, Emmy Rossum and Joan Cusack
Shameless: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] Starring William H. Macy, Emmy Rossum and Joan Cusack
BOX SETS
Looney Tunes Golden Collection 1-6 (2011)
Robert Trate writes three weekly columns for Mania: the DVD Shopping Bag, the Toy Maniac, and The Geek Life. Follow Robert on Twitter for his for Geek ramblings, Cosplay photos and film criticisms.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
The Borgias? Weird. I bought that months ago.