From expert director Ron Howard comes perhaps the defining space exploration film; rooted by true events Apollo 13 still stands as a testimony to what humanity could be.
Shortly after the amazing success of the Apollo 11 lunar landing that saw Neil Armstrong walk on The Moon, Apollo 13's mission was to repeat the performance. But with public opinion apparently disinterested already, and misfortunes plaguing them even before the launch... Apollo 13's mission might be the most dangerous and fatal space flight the world has ever seen.
Add to that, "the world might ever see".
I get quite passionate when it comes to space travel; I find it intensely disappointing when people are more excited about upgrading their phone so its one millimeter thinner than the prospect of man venturing further into a world of discovery. So understand that watching Apollo 13 again, twenty years on, still has a lasting effect.
This is mostly due to director Ron Howard's excellent style of film-making that grounds everything in reality and really focuses on the time period, something he would be perfecting over his career with Frost/Nixon, Rush and others. Set in 1970 the film acquires, much like his other films, a timeless quality, making the pioneering human spirit all the more prevalent. Nearly fifty years ago we achieved this!? It is incredible.
The film itself is a solid, rewarding experience. While 2013's flashy affair Gravity is the same concept, and I was reminded of it, it was a rollercoaster experience heavily influenced by suspension of disbelief. Apollo 13 is based on reality, real events in a science that many of us do not understand and/or has been revised over the years to become antiquated. As such, the script does descend into a mire of tech talk with a room of lab coats arguing intensely. I had no idea what was being said, but I would rather have that in my moments of intensity than "movie script cliche 101".
The acting across the board is very good, America's golden boy Tom Hanks filling the role of Astronaut commander Jim Lovell (the film being based off his book) well, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton as his crew mates, and Gary Sinise in perhaps the most interesting role; their original crewmate who was deemed unhealthy to go on the mission. Sinise's character Ken goes through an interesting arc, and I always remember it after seeing the film.
Ed Harris completes the cast as Houston's controller Gene Kranz, who looks like he is enjoying the role's intensity. Indeed, regardless of the severity and intensity that the film implements with integrity, there's a good streak of humour that rises up when it is needed. The sort of honest levity that we need in times of crisis.
Regardless of the realistic script and focus on the technology, you would need a heart of stone to not feel something still when the film concludes, such is the nature of the story, the truth behind it and the film-making at hand. Given our recent departure from space travel, the film's ending is actually more poignant now than ever...
Apollo 13 is an important film. It shows not just the indomitable human spirit but also our need to venture out beyond what we know, because when we do it is possible for us to band together for a common cause.
Interstellar's beauty is skin deep: at its best it is inspiring and gorgeous to look at; at its worst it can be cliched and paradoxically lacking in explanation.
Planet Earth is dying. The land is turning into a dustbowl and little to no life or vegetation can survive the dust storms that ravage the surface. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) lives as a farmer but once flew experimental aircraft due to growing demands of produce. His aspirations (and his ideal for Humanity) is to travel to other worlds, and when his daughter mysteriously finds the location of a secret government project of interstellar travel, he finds his destiny to be woven with that of Humanity's survival.
To say Interstellar is heavy material would be an understatement. Running at a weighty two hours and fifty you will feel exhausted by the end of it all, yet for all its perpetual severity and borderline preaching, it has great pacing and as a film it feels complete. Throw in some of its dry humour (something director/co-writer/producer Christopher Nolan is getting better and better at!) it does tide you through it all once you register its ponderous pace.
The actors are great, including the child actors, and the casting itself is splendidly tactful. The star of the show though is the visuals, which is why I came to see it to be fair. There are whopping big parallels with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and also Danny Boyle's massively underrated Sunshine, but made more mainstream than either of those by reducing jargon and "science" to a minimum. In fact, Nolan has notoriety for having scripts that over-analyse every solitary concept presented and one would imagine Interstellar, with its sci-fi near-future setting and pre-requisite for theoretical physics and space travel, it will start sounding like a thesaurus rendition. But Nolan's script is surprisingly light! Maybe a little... too light.
So it feels wrong to criticise Nolan for scrimping on details, but perhaps it was needed. Interstellar somehow feels too short for the awesome weight of time and information to be shown. While this is near-future, we are still dealing with massive distances and incredible time distortions. Yes we have robots, yes we have cryo-stasis, but when your characters flippantly say things like: "I'll have a couple of years to study it", only to wrap this concept up with a simple cut, the audience will be perplexed. Compound this further when things go wrong and a couple of years becomes decades!
Going into a film like this, having seen 2001 and Sunshine, I wasn't that surprised at any particular point. I was amazed, in awe, at the high definition spectacle. Planets with frozen clouds or colossal tidal waves, these things capture my imagination! But as a story things get very flaky in the third act, and actually jeopardise the entire venture.
You see the problem is, with all three films, is when Humanity (or at least your entire cast, who are by extension representing Humanity) is unified to one goal, the goal to survive, it is very hard to write in a believable antagonist or threat. Interstellar might have been a sci-fi docu-drama about the Solar system and I'd have been perfectly happy! But no... this is cinema, it needs a third act twist, and unfortunately I saw it coming a mile off. After this the screenplay wants to have its cake and eat it too, which felt a trifle forced. Honestly, I preferred Boyle's Sunshine.
But Interstellar is a good movie and deserving a watch (on IMAX it would look gorgeous!) It stumbles as it carries its own incredible weight, but it inspires all the right feelings. Acting is good, visuals are gorgeous, the spikes of humour brings out laughs, the first and (especially) the second act are the best and most credible.
As the film is quick to remind us: Life in space is impossible, and never has this been more apparent than in the new film by Alfonso Cuaron (director of Children of Men).
During repair work on the Hubble space telescope, a massive debris field destroys most of the repair team's operation. Incredibly isolated and with very few options open to them, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) must find a way home before the debris field orbits back to them again.
What can one say initially about Gravity? It is certainly a unique film experience (and I'm all for those!) The first couple of minutes are complete dead silence as we drift above Earth, and that's right, we start in space, no preamble.
The first act is easily the most disorientating, both from the terrifyingly silent visuals of mass chaos around our heroes, to the simple idea of being so vulnerable and at such dizzying heights.
The visuals are breathtaking, from the vastness of Earth below to the intensity of the void beyond, even when chaos breaks out, the fragmentation of equipment and objects is incredible. Of course, it isn't just a visual treat, the film does one thing subtly and very well; it doesn't over-explain things. Our characters may be isolated and alone, but we get a wealth of character from the few things they talk about. There are no flashbacks! There are plenty of opportunity for them, but the film maintains its claustrophobic atmosphere and does not break from it. Clooney and Bullock both give good performances, especially from her, carrying a lot of the film as a rookie astronaut.
It really captures the danger that comes with such conditions, the camerawork lovingly pans wider and wider, showing how exposed people are to the empty vacuum. It is something of a testimony to human ingenuity, but also frailty.
It is a very short film, and in some respects it is a one-trick pony, but damn does it do the trick well! I'd recommend seeing this on the biggest screen possible (a small screen will lack the vastness of our characters' peril) IMAX would be stunning. The 3D was certainly a welcome addition too, one of the better implementations I've seen!
Gravity will impress everyone, and no, asides some initial disorientation, I didn't feel sick!
I tried to not say "vast" or "vastness" too often... surprisingly difficult!
A mindless science fiction action shooter, while entertaining and fun it isn't intelligent enough for me to appreciate.
Guy Pearce plays a CIA officer named Snow who after being wrongly convicted is sentenced for time onboard a orbital prison space station. As bad luck would have it, the President's daughter is surveying the prison when the inmates break out and take control. Snow is now the only man who can get her to safety.
Lockout got my attention by having Luc Besson's name attached to it, though unfortunately he was only one of three men who worked on the screenplay and the film is "Based of an idea by Luc Besson". Hm. The film therefore is the creation of debut director James Mather.
It looks good, the prison has a robust and functional appearance, the prisoners are psychotic and threatening and Guy Pearce has a great sense of dry wit and cynicism. He never takes things seriously and it looks like he's having fun; a lot of the film's merit comes from Pearce's performance.
However... story and narrative fall very short. Lockout is an entertaining waste of time and little more. True, I have seen worse: I would recommend Lockout over 2012's Total Recall any day of the week, because at least Lockout has the good decency to be an original piece with original characters! It is just a shame this high-octane rollercoaster doesn't slow down a little more to explain how things work and who characters are. It is literally a science fiction video game with the objective: "Rescue the Princess".
I found myself in the final climax wondering why an orbital prison would need automated turrets all over it... or how a state of the art prison falls apart as soon as one prisoner gets hold of a gun. Wouldn't they have procedures and high-tech security against that sort of thing?
But, I appreciated it for what it was, a mindless science fiction action film, and a unique one at that. If you like this sort of genre or just want to waste time, give Lockout a watch.
Additional Marshmallows: There is one of the worst CGI sequences within the first ten minutes though... I kid you not, this was Ultraviolet (shudder...) levels of awfulness. Fortunately you can forget it almost immediately.
Mostly known as "Space Jumanji", I ignored this film with the belief that it would be inferior, silly and full of ghastly CGI. But how wrong could I be??
Walter and Danny are two young brothers staying with their father after their parents divorced and while there they find an old board game. Upon playing the game, the boys find themselves thrown into outer space and must stop fighting between themselves to survive the wondrous adventure.
Okay, do you want to hear my initial reactions to the film?
"Hm, Jumanji in Space? Not convinced."
"Directed by Jon Favreau?? Now I am interested!"
"Starring Kristen Stewart...?"
"NOooooooooooo!"
Now I have to address this. Amazingly, this is Kristen Stewart's best movie. It is. Seriously. I almost don't want to give anything away, but it's hilarious what they do with this insufferable, obnoxious airhead of a character. If you are like me and don't like Stewart, watch this, I guarantee you will thank me for it.
Zathura is a simple enough premise: it is Jumanji in space, and while some of the designs are simplistic (the board game and creatures are both styled as very 1960s sci-fi anyway) the practical effects got me. I love practical effects, and the late Stan Winston himself worked on the film, so the aliens and robots looked far more amazing than I was expecting. The film was made in 2005, the same year Lucas released Revenge of the Sith, there could have been all sorts of horrific CGI nastiness, but not here!
Sure the two boys take a little time to get used to, the first fifteen minutes feels a little long since... you know... we are expecting them to go into space! But they aren't overly frustrating or too badly written, they are at an acceptable level. I'm sure most boys of similar ages (eight through ten) could relate somewhat. I think Tim Robbin's bit part as their Dad (credited as) goes a long way to keep adult audiences watching. Plus, its Jon Faveau, the director of Iron Man, he knows how to make characters entertaining!
The film itself is relatively harmless and would be good fun for all the family, I think this is something of a buried gem in this regard and should get more appreciation! (whispers: in some respects it could be better than Jumanji... but I'll need to watch that again to be sure...)
If it is ever on TV, or you want something light and silly, give it a try.
Additional Marshmallows: Don't worry, my appreciation of Kristen Stewart in this film is purely driven by the venom I have for her as an... "actress". I find this part of the film hilarious not because she's any good, but because I took it as poking fun at her!
