I have never been a fan of the first-person video-camera style thriller. I didn't like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, which made me nauseous. I wasn't expecting much out of Apollo 18, so I came away pleasantly surprised. The film was well constructed and didn't jerk around so much as to make me dizzy. It wasn't a great film, but it wasn't necessarily bad, either. It is premised on a government cover-up of a mission gone bad.
The last official lunar mission was Apollo 17. There were three more planned missions that were scrapped. Or so we have been told. There was actually one more mission, Apollo 18, which went horribly wrong. Astronauts Benjamin Anderson (Warren Christie), Nathan Walker (Lloyd Owen) and John Grey (Ryan Robbins) were selected for a top secret mission in coordination with the Department of Defense. Under the guise of an early warning system for the US missile defense, the astronauts are tasked with placing listening modules near the south pole of the moon.
The mission appears to be routine until the astronauts come across an abandoned Soviet lunar lander. As the mission begins to wind down, strange events begin to happen. What begins as static and interference on communication frequencies escalates. The lunar rover is turned over and the US flag is missing. Maybe they are not alone. The astronauts attempt to launch their landing craft but run into trouble. The trouble escalates, compromising the entire mission. The events are recorded but carefully hidden until a Wikileaks type exposure results in the posting of classified videos at lunartruth.com.
I put the stylistic aspects of this film aside and as I watched, intrigued by a surprisingly decent piece of science fiction. My one hangup with this story revolves around a species of creature that has no ecosystem to exist in. There are no intermediate species and they kill their host. A recipe for extinction. Suspending that disbelief for the broader story, I found the plot to be solid enough (a conspiracy theory-type thriller that could just about be pulled from the headlines). The characters were decent, although not thoroughly developed. The concept required a great deal of discipline with the camera work, which was fairly tightly controlled. All things considered, I came away feeling that the film succeeded where films like it have failed. (Mildly).
The use of lesser known actors helped add to the mystique of Apollo 18. The illusion of a conspiracy theory would be thrown off if we recognized the actors. This is meant to be actual footage drawn from a conspiracy website. Or at least based on that footage. I was satisfied with the acting, which managed to keep the focus more on the story than the performances. Ryan Robbins especially stood out with a strong performance.
Apollo 18 is rated PG-13. There was mild violence and death, but nothing too graphic. There was some strong language and tense situations, but I never felt that the action was nightmare inducing. The realism created by the first-person footage added some excitement but I did not find this film to be very scary. If your children are prone to nightmares, then this film may be too much for them, but this isn't even close to Amityville Horror scary.
I was surprised that Apollo 18 appealed to me. It wasn't perfect, but I came away content with the ending. I especially enjoyed the "anti-gravity" moment as the Soviet lander reached orbit. That was a decent way to wrap things up. There were a few flaws in this film, but overall, it was a nice piece of science fiction. I still don't like this style of cinematography, but if I had to recommend one film shot in this style, it would probably be Apollo 18. IMDb has this film at 5.2/10. My recommendation isn't meant to be a glowing one, but I am moderately higher than that. 6/10.
