Wednesday, 28 September 2011 Apollo 18 (Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins) Posted by joeldfisher at 09:12

The moon had been the highest aspiration for years over the 1950's and 60's until finally on July 21st 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the not so distant planet (sorry technically the moon is a moon not a planet). Since then there had been many other mission to the moon, the ill fated Apollo 13 being probably the most famous and even being made into a movie itself.

There have also been a few movies made about the moon itself, from the infamous Capricorn One, about the faking of the moon landing to more recently Duncan Jones' critically acclaimed Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. However, there have also been many science fiction based horror movies, such as Alien, Event Horizon and even the Friday the 13th genre ventured into space with Jason X. There have been very little or none to my recollection that have brought the science fiction horror genre so close to us until now and Apollo 18 wants to prove its worth.

Taking inspiration, no doubt, from The Blair Witch Project and more recently Paranormal Activity, Apollo 18 is about the 'lost footage' of the secret 18th Apollo mission to the moon and why there have never been any more. The film starts off with a few publicity videos and video diaries from the crew themselves before sending them off on their mission and from then on the footage is entirely of the crew's experiences in space, and on the moon.

Unfortunately, being the film and TV buff that I am I immediately recognised one of the main actors, thus completely destroying the fantasy of the 'lost footage' and the debate that the movie may have been of actual footage. There may have been some people who are not as observant as I am on actors and their careers but as the movie progresses there are a lot more examples of lack of authenticity and things that sadly shatter the illusion for even the most casual observer.

Firstly and most glaringly, there has never been any gravity in space, whether you're on the moon itself or whether you're in your lunar module there is no way that you can firmly put your feet on the ground unless you are wearing a space suit. This fact has either escaped the makers of Apollo 18, or they genuinely didn't realise this or they ignored it, I for one am going for the latter. Also, as the movie progresses there are so many alien movie clichés that for this to be a real documentary would have to let the audience take a massive stretch of the imagination. For example, without giving away too many plot points there is a moment when Captain Bejamin Anderson (Lloyd Owen; best known to British audiences from Monarch of The Glen and to geeks as Indiana Jones' father in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones) becomes infected, and possessed by an alien virus. To have some sort of authenticity, I believe the screenwriters should have reconsidered taking such outlandish steps and maybe the movie could have been a bit more debatable on its accuracy and not raised as many laughs.

For a documentary, there is also a lot of linear plot lining. There are a few moments of suspense elevating the situation (using such devices as flickering cameras and unusual, alien noises), but the rest of the movie moves along at a pace unusual for a documentary or even 'lost footage' as the movie suggests. For this movie to have been enjoyable, clearly as a fake documentary-cum-horror movie I believe there should have been a lot more taken into consideration in terms of suspense and atmosphere (no pun intended) rather than plotlines.

When we do get to see the aliens, they are about as low budget as you can get, which is fine for a movie that wants to present itself as real footage because you get the feeling that presenting the movie this way would have meant the budget was tight. However the form in which they take is lazy and adds another laugh at the supposed heightened suspense of the movie, particularly so in its climax.

Dimension Films are the distributors of this movie and therefore it should give the audiences an idea of what they're getting. Most famously known for the Scream series, the recent Halloween and Piranha 3D remakes, this is low budget horror from a company that churn them out by the bucket load and a lot of them have been successful and in some cases enjoyable. However, I believe a much bigger budget and a less ambitious, lost footage style would have done nicely for the big screen, and may have been a lot more enjoyable.