If you are like me and enjoy watching movies more than once then this is will be added to your, must see again list. The Apollo 13 movie is based on the true events of what happened to the crew that was going to make a trip to the moon and put man back on after the historic flight of Armstrong and Aldrin and when they first walked on the moon. I love the casting of this movie and I feel like you can never go wrong with having Tom Hanks leading a movie. I have a hard time thinking a bad movies he has been in and feel like he can pull of many ranges of emotion and characters. I loved the vision that Ron Howard brought to the movie and although there is a lot different from the book or even how the events are portrayed, we get a great ride and great story telling with this movie.
I did some research on the event of Apollo 13 to get a feel of the differences and this movie comes pretty close to accurate, really close. The things that were different I understand after watching the movie were in place to give it more drama and suspense, which is how Hollywood makes their money, we love a good true story but we also love a good movie. One difference which they portrayed in the movie is when Gary Sinise comes in to help figure out how to help the crew minimize the amount of voltage they can use and make it back to earth. In real life it took several people to figure out what to do and there were already plans in place for issues like that. Also the real life character the Gary Sinise played wasn’t even involved in the same capacity that the movie showed us, but again that was created for our viewing pleasure and added suspense of the story.
The movie was made in 1995 at a running time of 2 hours and 20 mins, the version I watched was the IMAX version which is about 30 mins shorter than the actual movie. The effects were great, this movie incorporated a lot of practical effects, not like today where a lot of it is CGI. This movie they actually took the actors up in a customized Nasa plane that helps simulate weightlessness and made their needed takes at 23- 30 second intervals. So when you see them floating around, they are actually floating. Overall this was a great movie to watch, like I mentioned the cast is great, you have people like Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton and Ed Harris who also came through with his character not just in the look but his mannerisms. Love it! If you have a copy watch it again, I am sure it has been a while and if you don’t have one, go get one or find a copy to watch, you will love spending time with this one again and feel pride about what it took for our astronauts to make it to the moon or just to explore space travel.
