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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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