January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
At the movies
Movie review: Apollo 18 **
Stars: Lloyd Owen, Warren Christie
Director: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
Rated: PG-13
Showing: Liberty Theatre week of Friday, September 9 – weekdays only 12:00pm. For more information call 292-7296.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 88 minutes
Action/horror
A thin but diverting entry in the low-fi fakeumentary horror genre, Apollo 18 explains what’s really on the moon and why the US space programme decided against further study.
Why? Because a Blair Witch Project filmmaking seminar set up camp there first, that’s why!
Like Blair Witch and the Paranormal Activity pictures, Apollo 18 offers zero characterization and very little narrative.
It’s only about its own DIY aesthetic taken to extremes, and to the limit of the audience’s interest and patience. Many will find this movie silly and derivative. It is.
Yet it’s also a break from the usual hyperbolic, down-your-throat brand of silly and derivative scare movies.
Under cloak of super-secrecy, three astronauts played by Lloyd Owen and Warren Christie and a third, uncredited actor — that’s how super-secret the mission is — embark on a moon mission to plant some sort of anti-missile defence system up there before the Russkies do.
The time is 1974. But there’s something up there, something besides the remnants of something human. I will say no more about it.
The movie contains only a wee handful of surprises. Apollo 18 cannot satisfactorily answer the question "Wait - who's supposed to be filming this part?" Yet Lopez-Gallego handles the sequences set inside one of the moon's craters well enough to suggest he may have a lot of talent, some of which is on view in this green-cheese outing.[[In-content Ad]]
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