Friday, September 2, 2011

Apollo 18 Review

Just to let you know up front, this will not be a politically correct review and I will be brutally honest. I have a no sugar coating policy when it comes to telling people about movies. Apollo 18 is not a movie I would recommend to anyone. There are a variety of factors that go into that decision for me.

The pacing of this movie is what ultimately destroys any potential that this movie could have had. The pacing is so unbelievably uneven that it actually distracts you during the movie. For the first 40 minutes there is almost no action or movement whatsoever and then there is a five minute "action sequence" and then there is 10 minutes of "action at the end". For a movie that is only 86 minutes with the credits, 40 minutes of stet up might not be the greatest strategy. This happened to be only the second movie I have ever fallen asleep during, the other one being the last Indiana Jones movie. The entire movie using alternating shots from the astronauts' personal cameras, cameras on board the space capsule and the motion cameras that they brought with them to place on the surface of the moon. This can get frustrating because the shots switch so frequently, and the viewer never has a clear idea of what is happening on screen. I feel the director wasted the movie's potential by using this style. Paranormal Activity succeeded because it set up it sequences so well and there were scenes molded around each camera type they used in the movie. Apollo 18 ultimately fails because the entire movie feels disjointed and unevenly paced.

The only thing that this movie has going for it is the performances by the leads. While the acting isn't going to blow you away, it does get the job done and is fairly convincing. If you are actually reading this review and wondering where my comments on the horror aspects of the movie are, it would have been nice if there were any type of effective horror sequences in the movie. Each "scare" is telegraphed so poorly that you know exactly what is going to happen before the scene is completely set up. I left the theater trying to convince myself that I "liked" this movie, and it only took me 5 minutes to realize that this movie was a heaping pile of worthless shit. Take my advice and stay away from this piece of shit and go see a good movie such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes or wait until Warrior comes to theaters.

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