Apollo 18

Apollo 18 (2011)

18% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 44 reviews)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego

Starring: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

From: Dimension Films

Here is a movie that sounded interesting to me, as while it’s yet another found footage it at least had an interesting and fresh angle in that it’s alleged footage from a covered-up Apollo mission that was said to never happen but the story of the movie was that it was a secret mission which was covered up by the government. This had its release changed from spring this year all the way to spring next year, then they changed their mind and moved it to Labor Day weekend. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. I heard a toxic review from a website that I trust, but a reviewer on the site that I don’t trust, so I wasn’t sure what to expect; that’s why I took a chance this afternoon and went out and saw it.

Without giving too much away-such as who or what was causing all the mysterious stuff you saw in the trailers/TV ads-I’ll say that this movie says it was footage taken from the government and uploaded to what is a viral website for this movie that shows there was an Apollo 18 and why it was kept secret from the public. A trio of astronauts are shot up into space to go to the moon, with the usual setup of two of them walking on it and a third staying up in orbit around the moon. Soon after they get there, they discover mysterious stuff going on; what could it be? The answer… but again, I won’t spoil it for anyone.

Who or what it turns out is behind all the shenanigans on the moon is what I’d call goofy. Then again, the whole plot can raise a lot of logical questions if you think about it a little; what those questions are… they’re spoilers so I can’t even elaborate on that but it makes you wonder why those previous astronauts on the moon like Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin did not come across it before. Yet, despite that sort of thing, I still thought the movie was entertaining-enough. A lot of the footage did look like it came from the era of late 1974, when they said the mission happened. The acting was fine and I wasn’t annoyed by any of the three astronauts, which is a plus. There was enough creepiness and jump scares-but not too much of them-to entertain me. Plus, at times the movie has a mean streak; in this case that worked instead of being a turn-off for being too mean and nasty.

So, judging by popular opinion I may be in the minority but maybe the low expectations I had due to the negative reviews helped me think this was entertaining, if not a masterpiece by any means. If you can turn your brain off it’s fun. I certainly did not think it was awful as many reviewers loudly proclaimed. Having a found footage movie with typical movie credits at the end was a little silly, but alas…

I’ll be back Sunday night with a new review.