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MOVIE
REVIEW – APOLLO 13
Rating: PG
Year of release: 1995
Time Length: 140 minutes
Cast: Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan
Synopsis/review: At first, it seemed the perfect mission--too perfect,
even, to make headlines. After three days in space,
three Apollo astronauts--Jim Lovell (two- time Academy
Award winner Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and
Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon)--were finally approaching
a long-cherished destination. Apollo 13 was going to the Moon.
Back in Houston, astronaut Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) considered
himself the unluckiest man on earth. Two days before
launch, he'd been grounded from Apollo 13 for medical
reasons. And so Mattingly was in Mission Control when Jim Lovell intoned
a simple, heart-stopping message across the void of space:
"Houston...we've got a problem."
Something had gone horribly wrong. Power and guidance systems were
down-- and the supply of oxygen was rapidly dwindling.
Lovell, Haise and Swigert now faced a grim reality--that
their crippled capsule, stranded 205,000 miles in space, might never
return to earth.
With time running out, the crew and thousands of others braved near-
impossible odds in a daring attempt to guide the capsule
earthward. For three days, the world watched in rapt
silence--not knowing until the last, anxious moment whether the men
of Apollo 13 would come home alive.
Ed Harris (The Abyss, Glengarry Glen Ross) co-stars as flight director
Gene Kranz in Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard (Backdraft,
The Paper) and produced by Brian Grazer (Backdraft,
The Paper) through Imagine Films. The screenplay is
by William Broyles, Jr. & Al
Reinert, based on the book by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey
Kluger, Lost Moon.
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