Apollo 18 Review

Quick description.

Apollo 17 was the last lunar mission? Not quite. Ben Anderson, Nate Walker, and John Grey are sent on a top secret lunar mission… To the moon. It’s name: Apollo 18. They’re setting up a lunar radar device to spy on the soviets. At least that’s what they were told. But they’re not alone on the moon.

Quick review

10/18 Apollo missions.

Apollo 18 is a found footage horror movie set on the moon. It follows two astronauts who land on the moon, and their pilot in orbit while they unwittingly uncover a mystery that forces them to wonder: Are we alone in the universe? From a production point of view they did a very good job of making the found footage look like it’s era-appropriate, filmed in a way that looks genuine, and the moon itself looks exactly like Apollo footage. The actors did an overall good job, however in some parts they react unrealistically to situations. Still there were astronauts. It was cool.

Real Niel

Fake

Detailed Analysis

**Spoiler alert**

So after watching this movie I hit up Wikipedia, and found out that premise of this movie involves real events, but not the events you may think. There was no 18^th Apollo mission, but 160 moon rocks have gone missing or have been destroyed, which should make total sense to you if you’ve seen the movie. If you haven’t you should totally leave this spoiler alert section. Seriously, stop reading. The movie only has one plot twist, It’s not worth watching if you find out now.

Anyway now that you’re gone, it turns out the rocks are aliens. Little crab/rock aliens. That’s the real reason we never went back. So how does that work for the premise of an entire movie? It was alright, I would have liked stronger character development scenes, and some of the found footage scenes are less believable than others. Although all in all it’s pretty cool to see astronauts fighting moon rocks. You never really get bored. If you’re in the mood to watch a good horror movie that doesn’t require much thinking, mainly because there isn’t much thinking that needs to be done (They go to the moon. There are rock aliens.) Then you’ll like this movie. They spend a few minutes at the beginning establishing a backstory for the astronauts, as part of the movie’s overall narrative that it’s the choice picks from footage found after the mission.

Some people have criticized the length of the movie, given the material they were using. But I think if they had added 10 minutes or so more character development throughout the movie, slower scenes might have seemed more exciting. Still, in faster scenes, they do an excellent job of conveying suspense, I particularly liked the scene where they were on their lunar rover, and they fall off. I know that sounds like a pretty lame favorite scene, but there are aliens. It’s interesting because we forget how dangerous space is, and even the slightest problems become major, especially if you can’t leave. 

Source Code Review

Quick Descriptions:

Source Code is a science fiction/action thing movie, Featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier participating in a mysterious science experiment and Michelle Monaghan as his love interest. It’s filled with questions, and the audience get’s to learn the answers as the main character does. If you want to watch this movie, expect it to be a little bit like inception, in that it’s dense with extreme plot twists, and keeps you guessing the whole time.

Quick Review:

8/8(minutes)

Jake Gyllenhaal (Colter Stevens) wakes up in a little pod and has to figure out what he’s doing there. It turns out that he’s been put there by a secret government/military operation, and his mission involves foiling a plot to bomb a train In Chicago, and Chicago itself. At first the main character seems disoriented and confused. Eventually the plot begins to reveal itself as he gets more and more information.

Analysis:

**Spoiler alert**

Source code is written in such a way so that you never really get bored by more informative scenes, because they’re balanced really well with action oriented scenes, and cool plot twists. Even the simplest scenes keep you guessing and excited. Though the writers worked with a really simple idea, they did a really good job of making it exciting, serious, suspenseful. Even though they show similar scenes over and over, (Repeating the same 8 minute window on a commuter train in Chicago) each one introduces a new idea, and makes you wonder what the next one will be like. Each one introduces a new idea, and makes you question what the next one will be like. Just as the novelty of this set of scenes on the train wares off, they start introducing new elements to the plot, and answering questions.

  

So, just because Jake Gyllenhaal, and some girl are on the cover doesn’t mean this is a romantic comedy or something (as you might have guessed from the title.) If you don’t like movies where you have to do a lot of thinking, or you get confused easily, you might not want to watch this movie. Although this doesn’t bother me, I have friends who were confused by Star Trek, who probably should not watch this movie. As far as something that’s legitimately bad about the movie itself, I don’t have much to say. Although it had a bit of an abrupt ending, it fit the tone of the movie. I don’t usually like quick endings (Contagion,) but this time it worked well, and made me wonder about the possibility of a sequel.

And this is my quick ending. Bye.