The funniest and perhaps scariest about this film is that NASA felt concerned enough to announce publicly that this is a work of fiction to the American movie-going people…
What we have here is another found footage flick along the lines of Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, without the scares or unnerving elements of either. Another ‘watch the background’ film that relies as much on things not happening as it does on the action once it inevitably starts.
In this case we are lead to believe that there was a moon mission launched by NASA in the early 70s, a hush-hush mission manned by 3 All American good guy astronauts to get an edge on those pesky Russians.
There is no messing around with the film, we spend moments meeting our brave intrepid heroes Nate – the mission commander – Ben and John, and within ten minutes of screentime Nate and Ben are on the lunar surface with John orbiting in the capsule above them. I won’t bore you with the details, but they quickly find out that the moon is not made of cheese…
Man MTV should sue this NASA mob.
There are strange sounds, strange findings and essentially strange happenings in the early going.
Things go wrong with the mission, cameras and lights flicker at inopportune moments and things that shouldn’t move, do – helpfully highlighted for the viewers convenience by our friends at NASA.
Stress levels build within the team and communications between them and home base on American soil become considerably more strained as time goes on and the intensity ramps up. Speaking of intensity, the film’s final half hour is pretty damn silly, and when the film is only a taut 80 minutes to begin with that’s a high proportion of yelling and histrionics to put up with.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. Apollo 18 is predictable from the get go but despite this it is fairly well managed for the most part. The end result being something that could be ideal teen-friendly squeeze your partner’s hand fare, with nothing too controversial or upsetting, but also nothing particularly memorable and lasting either.
It is less daunting or nerve wracking than your Paranormal Activity(s), which is probably why there will be no Apollo 19…
