Apollo 13 (1995): Film By Ron Howard – Space Docudrama – Tom Hanks- Pal VHS

This movie is a dramatization of the very real events of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that was supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the third time. Of course, on the way to the moon, there was an explosion that caused the oxygen tanks to leak out into space, endangering the life of the crew, at which point the mission became a scramble to get the crew back to Earth safely.The movie was directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, the mission commander of Apollo 13. The movie also starred Kevin Bacon as Apollo 13 backup Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert, Bill Paxton as Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise, Ed Harris as White Team Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Gary Sinise as Apollo 13 prime Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly who was supposed to be the pilot on the mission but was scrubbed and replaced with Swigert. The movie is a pretty standard docudrama. Howard, who is a big space enthusiast, was a stickler for getting the technical details correct. While he did change some things for dramatic effect, including the most famous line from the movie, “Houston, we have a problem” (Lovell really said “Houston, we’ve had a problem”), much of what was shown in the movie happened the way it did in real life. The movie was adapted from Lovell’s book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, and he served as a consultant on the movie.For those who get the Blu-Ray, the movie looks and sounds great in HD. The extras include two different commentary tracks, one by Ron Howard, and one with Jim and Marilyn Lovell. There is also a one-hour making-of documentary, a 48 minute TV special that discussed the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union, and a twelve-minute segment from the show Dateline about the movie. So, a lot of bonus material for those who like going through the extras.Overall, the movie is wonderful. It is well written and very well acted, with Hanks and Sinise as the standouts (but the entire cast does a great job). While it is a period piece, and it is made to look as much as possible as things looked at the time of the mission, the movie is timeless and holds up even twenty-plus years after it was made. Whether you are interested in the movie because you are a fan of Ron Howard or one or more of the actors, are into the history of the space program, or are just looking for a good drama to watch, I highly recommend this.