Pathetically riding the coat-tails of "The Blair Witch Project", which has been old-news
for a decade now, this film is built off the mind-blowing absurd premise that the 8th mission
to the moon wasn't canceled, but rather deemed top-secret after the Department Of Defense
wants the astronauts to place ICBM detectors on the lunar surface, incase the Soviets ever
decide to attack.
Perhaps even more absurd is the film-makers decision not to produce this film like a typical
sci-fi horror film with a laughable premise, but as an honest-to-god documentary, built
from the "recovered" footage of a space-mission that *supposedly happened*.
Such a delivery assumes two things: that your audience is brain-dead, and that anyone on
this planet actually enjoys this terribly faked documentaries.
Since neither is true, "Apollo 18" can pretty much be declared dead on liftoff.
Originally scheduled for February 2010, "Apollo 18"'s release date was astoundingly pushed
back eight separate times, with distributor Dimension Films refusing to screen the film
for the press until it finally came out on September 2nd.
In what is obviously his first English-speaking film, director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego clearly
has no understanding of character development or emotional investment.
It was not until the third act of this film that I actually learned one of the characters
names.
And keep in mind, there are only two actors on screen for nearly 90% of the entire movie.
Coming in at barely-feature length, this film still feels excruciatingly long at 86-minutes...
with most of the film feeling like a bad science experiment on the audience.
Everything we're witness to was supposedly filmed by 70's era film camera mounted on
the lunar craft, or held by the protagonists... resulting in countless uncomfortable and claustrophobic
shots, lens distortion and film grain - most of which shot on the barren wasteland of the
moon in black-and-white.
To say this film was nauseating and visually unappealing would be the understatement of
cinema history.
Even the editing curiously incorporates way to may shots of the decades-old film unspooling
from it's thread...
I get that the intention here is to make this fake footage look old and damaged... but as
a recovered documentary made in present day, wouldn't these hiccups be cut from the final
film?
There is some semblance of a plot here, when the astronauts discover the remains of a Soviet
craft on the moon, destroyed by an unknown alien life form.
To think that the Soviets actually *did* land on the moon before us, and in secret, is an
intriguing premise - and one that is completely ignored -- instead, we're meant to believe
that moon rocks can sprout legs, and infect humans, causing them to go insane.
(CLIP) It's no surprise that NASA chose to distance themselves from this wreck - it's
missing characters, purpose, color, an ending, and even a soundtrack.
The hokey tagline of the film reads, "There's a reason we've never gone back to the moon",
when really someone should have told the producers -- "there's a reason Apollo 18 was canceled
in the 70's...", Do yourself a favor and avoid this film... because, "Apparently Failure
was an option".
Well, that was my scathing review, now let's read some of yours from the YouTube comments.
Here's the rate-o-matic to rate "Apollo 18" - a TWO and a FIVE.
Missing almost everything that makes a movie enjoyable, I thought this movie was crappy.
There was apparently something here you liked though, and your scored averaged out to an
alright.