“APOLLO 18” NEVER LEAVES GROUND

APOLLO 18

Starring Warren Christie,

Lloyd Owen,

Ryan Robbins

Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego

Written by Brian Miller, Cory Goodman

Running time 88 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Think “Blair Moon Project.”

          In 1972, three astronauts take a secret mission to the moon. Cameras record events in and out of lunar modules. Strange things happen–I shan’t say what–perhaps explaining why we never went back to the moon.

          Reality TV, astronaut-style, may sound great as a concept, but the actual execution looks like a major ripoff.

          Blurry stuff, shaky camera, fake scratches in the “film.” Yet all that the contrivances geared toward authenticity in lieu of story serve to do is annoy. Anytime somebody’s on the moon in a movie, you can’t help but notice issues with gravity. But there isn’t nearly enough story to distract us from seeing the heels of the wizard moving back and forth behind the curtain.

          Once in a while there’s a movie where it’s just a couple dudes in a room most of the time, and some of those movies work out okay. But this isn’t one of those.

          If you’ve got a stationary camera on board a lunar module, then it doesn’t zoom in. Maybe it’s not multiple times that that happens, but it feels like it.

          As for leaving certain events in film to the audience’s imagination, sure, that’s generally a good idea. To a point. We will be requiring a certain amount of payoff. This is where the “Blair Witch Project” factor comes in. The ripoff factor. The one where the filmmakers try to pass low-quality under the aegis of “authenticity.”

          “Apollo 18” does have a few payoff moments, but they’re so few and so brief, they basically count as nothing.

          For example, when the two main astronauts (Christie, Owen) leave the module and walk around on the surface of the moon, they encounter craters which never see sunlight. Sounds great. You can’t help wishing Kubrick or Spielberg were around to film it, too. Because when one of the astronauts goes into the crater, he has to use a flashlight that works like a flashbulb. That means we’re stuck seeing a black screen with a spot of light occasionally flaring for half a second. In one of those flashing spots of light we know we will eventually see a brief unsatisfying digital effect. And there’s your payoff for you.

          Plus no musical score. That goes toward authenticity, too.