Taking part in a secret NASA mission, a group of astronauts are tasked with placing an unknown payload on the Moon's surface. Documenting the mission via an array of cameras, they soon discover the remnants of a failed Russian mission that suggests that they may not be alone.
I must admit to being cautiously excited after seeing the first trailer for Apollo 18. As an unashamed fan of the found footage sub-genre, I think that when it's done right it can be creepily effective. This time around, the film is supposedly produced from secret government footage uploaded to a conspiracy uncovering website (lunartruth.com), and if found footage films need to nail one thing to succeed, it's the idea that they're showing you something you're not supposed to see.
Even after the studio interference, it just isn't capable of delivering the same calibre of scares as some of its genre mates, and considering some of the talent involved (the film was produced by Night Watch director Timur Bekmambatov) I'd have expected more. Never do you feel the same kind of creeping threat that you do with the Paranormal Activity franchise, and despite one or two jumps, they rely more on loud noises (how does that work on the surface of the Moon?) than actual terror.
Apollo 18 feels overlong and drawn out which, when you consider that 10 of its short 86 minutes running time is the end credits, is a hard thing to achieve. Never has space travel seemed so dull, Apollo 18 is a film so shabbily produced I'm not even sure they've finished it yet.
Verdict
Special Features: All alternative endings, deleted scenes, director and editor commentary, trailer
It's too bad that this movie turned out to be a dud. It seemed like such a foolproof concept, too...
ReplyDeleteJust got the Apollo 18 blu ray on sale. The question of how the film got back to Earth without another mission bugged me and I just figured out a way. The Soviet LK on the surface didn't travel to the moon by itself. It would have a LOK spacecraft in lunar orbit just like the Apollo Command Module. After the LK and Command Module collided in lunar orbit the remaining Soviet cosmonaut in the LOK could have done a rendezvous with the wreckage, retrieved the film and brought it back to earth. Provided that the Soviet pilot hadn't already returned home yet.
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