Tom Hanks Movie:

				Salesrank: 255263
		Used Price: $21.53
		MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon

Description of Apollo 13 [Region 2]:
Relying primarily on actual footage shot by NASA and by news organizations, this video documents the drama of the aborted Apollo 13 mission, in which three astronauts came close to losing their lives in space. The actual recording of commander Jim Lovell telling Houston about the "problem" made famous in the Hollywood version of Apollo 13 is presented, and the scenes showing distressed engineers in the actual control room in Houston are in some ways much more dramatic than anything seen on the big screen. This is, after all, reality, with real people scrambling under intense pressure to save real lives. Besides the footage inside mission control, the video also showcases invaluable flight footage shot by the astronauts aboard the crippled spaceship. This video takes an essentially chronological approach, but the technique of using the crew's postflight news conference to serve as narration, while it is at first confusing, serves a useful purpose. This is a no-frills production, but the excitement as NASA engineers mobilize and the whole world watches the news about the stricken spaceship is so gripping that any flourishes would only seem to get in the way. --Robert J. McNamara

Apollo 13 [Region 2] Reviews:
Unable to load
2009-08-10 - The DVD came in great condition. New in wrapper but we were unable to load on any of our DVD players.

Watch "From the Earth to the Moon" instead
2009-07-22 - This is a long movie, and it certainly seems like it. Perhaps its Tom Hank's typically low-energy acting, or just that the movie doesn't recreate the suspense over 30 years after the incident, but I just find it heard to sit through this movie. At times, it starts to seem like the Tom Hanks show.

If there is any redeeming factor to the movie, it's the fact that it later led to Tom Hank's From the Earth to the Moon television series, which is excellent. That series focuses on the entire Apollo program and has a great set of actors [the series includes an episode on Apollo 13, but it also isn't very good]. I would actually give Apollo 13 an extra star just for leading to that series. On its own, the movie just isn't very satisfying.

Makes One Want To Study The Real Astronauts
2009-07-09 -
This was a very well-done true story of a space mission that came extremely close to being a disaster, but the astronauts miraculously made it home safely. It's good storytelling and so interesting that it led me to study the real Apollo 13 astronauts.

The movie is fairly long at 140 minutes and there is not much "action" but there is a lot of suspense and first-rating acting, both of which should keep anyone's interest. Knowing this was a true story makes one all the more involved with it.

For such a tense story, with these astronauts lives on the line, none of the astronauts or people at NASA or anyone's family members are ever seeing praying throughout this ordeal! You can bet, in real life, a lot of prayers were answered on this mission.


Apollo 13
2009-07-04 - Item arrived with NO DVD. I needed this to teach a college course and I had to pay for premium shipping for the replacement DVD which is not HD. Very disappointed in the deal.

Houston, we have a problem.
2009-07-02 - I first saw this movie in 1996 while vacationing in FLorida at my grandparents' winter home. I hadn't before had any particular interest in it, but once I watched it I was hooked. I was delighted therefore when my science teacher at that time announced that we would be watching it over a period of a few days in class. There were of course worksheets to go along with each viewing, assignments to see what details, sometimes having nothing at all to do with science, we could manage to remember. One such question asked for the name of both the artist and song playing at the moment when Jack Swigert answered the phone to receive the news that he would be on the Apollo 13 mission.
It wasn't until a few years later that my folks purchased me a copy for Christmas. At the time however, DVD's hadn't quite started to come into fashion, so it was still on VHS, complete with audio descriptions for blind folks like myself. These were extremely helpful, this being the visual film that it is. You were still left with a vivid picture of the scene and what the Apollo 13 spacecraft looked like.
Today, however, I managed to find this two-disk special edition at a local book, movie and gaming store and, after having a birthday, decided to treat myself. I'll say this much. You know the movie's good when one of the very astronauts from that mission, Jim Lovell along with his wife Marilyn, have their own commentary track, during which they discuss what a fine job Ron Howard did with the movie. And yes folks, Mrs. Lovel did in fact lose her wedding ring down a shower drain, though thankfully she did manage to retrieve it..
All that aside, I was really impressed with the film, even knowing almost nothing about the actual events myself. I knew it was based on a true story but that was about as far as it went. And let me tell you, the musical score only adds to the tention, particularly during certain moments which I won't reveal. All I can say is it was an amazing story, particularly given the limitations of technology and resources back in 1970, not to mention the extreme time deficit the astronauts and Mission Control were faced with. Even one simple mistake could have been fatal. The film's musical score captured the feeling perfectly and the cast probably couldn't have been more well-chosen. If you haven't seen this movie yet I wholeheartedly recommend it.