Apollo 13 (1998, DVD)

The superb science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who passed away in 1988, once write a novel, published in 1966, entitled The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which was not about a space flight to the moon, but rather about a revolt by colonists on the Moon against Earth. Yet even so, the American astronauts of Apollo 13 discovered a harshness all their own when they attempted to voyage to Luna and land there for their explorations. An explosion in their spacecraft, and the ensuing probability of their doom, held the world in suspense for a few days back in April of 1970.

Those of us who witnessed that drama remember the fears and hopes of mankind in those fateful days, and we remember the flood of relief when, seemingly miraculously, the three astronauts of Apollo 13 safely landed on terra firma once again. The story of these men, and those who supported them in the National Air and Space Administration, is as dramatic as a movie, and it was inevitable that at some point a film would have been made of the events of those days.

Thus it was, that a fine movie indeed was made of the adventure, Apollo 13. Released in 1995, it traces the ill-fated thirteenth Apollo mission from start to finish with a clear and realistic power that brought a newness to movies of its type. Few fictional movies about space flight can match its gripping suspense and human drama, and as such in its way it is a landmark movie.

Ron Howard, a young and enthusiastic director absolutely in touch with the American psyche of the times, had at his disposal the talents of Tom Hanks, another creative artist who knows a thing or two about the American psyche. Hanks was also a space flight enthusiast, and that factor figured prominently in the creativity of the story. Other fine actors, notably Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Bill Paxton combined forces with Hanks to craft a brilliant story that is worth watching many times over.

While other very good movies about the American space program, such as the luminous The Right Stuff deal as much with the technology of flight as much as with the characters in the story, Apollo 13 emphasizes the human aspect of its own story far more than the mechanics of the rocketry and support systems; thus it strikes for the heart, and it succeeds in spades.

This aspect of the drama is one of the main things that sets it in its special place. While a good bit of The Right Stuff is humorous and light-hearted, Apollo 13 hits you in the gut and has you chewing at your fingernails in serious fear for the lives of the astronauts, who seem to be truly working against the odds, as they indeed were in real life. There is humor in the story, but all humor goes out the window when we know that lives are, and were, at stake.

The mission is shown in painstaking detail, and the realistic portrayal of that mission is as cold-bloodedly accurate as a documentary, and yet the viewer is acutely aware that these are good men who are in this spacecraft, and because we have been introduced to them as persons we would all like to know or perhaps even be, we feel we are on board with them at all times, and their destiny is in a way ours as well. This may be that while in real life the Apollo 13 drama was shown on TV screens to us as it unfolded, minute-by minute in many cases, the adventures of the earlier Mercury astronauts portrayed in films like The Right Stuff were more distant, and often enhanced by public relations. Thus there is a difference in memories, and we feel closer to the men of Apollo 13. We saw them up close and personal, and we remember.

Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) has a command presence from the start. Hanks, being the warm, human actor that he is, has little trouble making his role credible. This credibility is underscored by the dialogue of other actors, one of whom plays his mother, who tells the world in one scene that she is confident that her son can fly anything, and if there is a man who can save the day, it is Jim. Accompanied by astronauts Haise (Paxton) and Swigert (Bacon) (two supporting actors who are highly skilled in knowing what it is to be a supporting actor), Hanks as Lovell utters those immortal lines, Houston, we have a problem after an oxygen tank explodes and the three men enter into a battle for desperate survival.

Even though the mission itself is doomed, the movie proceeds to become a rousing tribute to NASA and its men-in-charge, such as Gene Krantz, played with noble forcefulness by Ed Harris in a highlight moment of his film career. The brave determination of all overcomes the disappointment of the astronauts who must abandon their dream of landing on the moon. The movie takes us down to the wire, as the astronauts painfully sense that they may die in space. Through a combination of unwillingness to surrender, collective team creativity, and skill, the astronauts and their supporters at Houston Mission Control break through the barrier of impossibility and the men come back home alive.

This is a great film for every person to watch, because it not only is a true story of probable tragedy which has a good outcome, but it is also a true story of real heroism, and its concentration is upon the inner feelings and lives of its characters, all the way through. It is a salient reminder that, as Yogi Berra once said, It ain t over till it s over.

This leaves one at the end of the film with the feeling that hope is still there even when all around is dark with gloom. The Moon may be a harsh mistress, but its terrors were once, by a handful of die-hards overcome, and that means other challenges in our real lives may be dealt with successfully as well.

Five Stars *****