Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard shoot the moon in this surprisingly gripping and
supremely entertaining retelling of the moon landing that wasn't. In 1970, less than a year
after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had walked on the moon,m Apollo 13 is lunar-bound
under the command of Jim Lovell(Hanks). His fellow astronauts are Fred Haise (Bill Baxton)
and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), a last-minute replacement for Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise)
who's grounded by a measles scare. All goes well until the third day when Lovell tells
Houston, they've got "a problem". Howard and his excellent cast make us for get we're
watching a foregone conclusion. How? Simple. By making this an actors' movie. For All the
techno-jargon bandied around Mission Control, for all the breathtaking shots of a
painstakingly recreated lunar module hurtling through the stars, we believe the mission is
in trouble because the actors make us believe. Ultimately, the fate of Apollo 13 comes down
to one thing: do these guys have the right stuff? Certainly the actors do ~ especially
Hanks in space and Ed Harris as the NASA leader on the ground. True, Howard still doesn't
know how to do family stuff; the gooey scenes at the Lovell home are Mayberry moments in
the midst of a Mission Impossible. But overall, to paraphrase what Lovell says to his
colleagues, Gentlemen, it's a privilege flying with you.
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