-Image of Apollo 18 Productions' Apollo 18 from movieweb.com
Film Review By Christian Salinas IMDB Plot Summery
Decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon.
Expectations
It’s impossible to watch the trailers or TV spots for this film, and not compare it to other “found-footage” type films such as Cloverfield or Quarantine or, of course the film that arguably created the sub-genre The Blair Witch Project. So walking into the theater, I was expecting something similar as far as tone, and style but most importantly direction… I was wrong.
Entertainment Value
This film just isn’t very entertaining. It’s very slow to develop, and the “big reveal” just doesn’t make much of an impact. Being that I’m such a huge fan of space-themed movies, I could have easily overlooked all of these points however if the film had awesome space and moon visuals… it doesn’t.
Overall…
I really liked the entire concept of the movie, I’ve always been fascinated by the all of the Apollo missions, and the film does feature a couple of genuinely suspenseful moments. But overall, it just didn’t seem like the filmmakers followed the rules of the genre they obviously wanted to fit into (the mocumentary, found-footage sub-genre). From the very beginning, the filmmakers do everything they can to make us believe that everything we are seeing is authentic NASA footage. But, even though the “plot” attempts to justify it, there are just too many camera angles, and way too much style and editing for us to ever get lost in the film, and accept it as "reality".
The Good…
The concept of “something” being found on the moon by Apollo astronauts is pretty cool, plus the film does have genuinely suspenseful moments.
The Not So Good
It is very hard to accept any aspect of this film as “reality”, which I believe is a key element to enjoying “found-footage” type movies.
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