Apollo 18

A depressingly tedious film that doesn't understand its own premise, Apollo 18 is yet another 'found footage' thing in which this time the footage was taken by the crew of the Apollo 18 mission on humanity's last ever trip to the Moon. For some reason the crew of Apollo 18 film absolutely everything they do up on the moon including when they're sleeping and having their miraculously able-to-zoom-and-focus-by-themselves cameras on all the time outside the ship when there's 'nothing' to film.  Sigh.

I actually saw the real Apollo 18 when I visited the NASA Space Centre in Houston last year. They have the unlaunched rocket and the command module on display in a humongous hangar to demonstrate just how large the Saturn 5 rockets really were. It's an impressive display and something that anyone who finds themselves in South East Texas should check out. One of the kids on our tour did ask the tour guide about 'what really happened to Apollo 18'. The guide batted the question away with some skill, and I followed up with a question about NASA's research into the next generation of rocket engines. I think he preferred my question.

So the idea here is that the reason Apollo 17 was the 'last' moon mission was because there is some kind of alien presence on the moon that manifests itself in the form of moon rock and dust. So Apollo 18 is some kind of half-suicide mission to the moon to find out what's going on.

It's tedious as there's no tension and the premise is undermined at every turn by the style and content of the film. If Apollo 18 was the final moon mission, how did the footage get found? They wouldn't have transmitted it as it was being filmed as a) no one would ever do that and b) anyone listening in on Earth would have been able to record it. So someone would have had to go to the moon to get it. The film also makes the classic mistake that so many badly-made found footage films make, which is to forget that the cameras are part of the story. What this means is that you can't have a wide-angle establishing shot for a scene unless there's a character in the film who has a reason to go and take a wide-angle establishing shot. There are a number of shots in the film taken from an angle and position at which it would have been impossible to take or position a camera within the context of the story. Though this may sound like tedious nit-picking, what it does is break down the 4th wall and remind you that this in fact isn't a found footage at all. It makes the director and editor look lazy for not realising that their artistic decisions are undermining the premise of the film. It just makes the whole film look rushed and like no-one cared.

Should be going to see the new Bond on Monday next week. Trailers look good, so here's hoping for something that gets back to the heights set by Casino Royale.