Our take
If you want a powerful, masterful rendition of the ill-fated space mission, go and watch Apollo 13 (1995). But the documentary more than half a century after the mission, and two decades after the feature film, is not half bad. Of course, being a documentary, Apollo 13: Survival is much more factual, but the true tale still manages to hold the tension, the high stakes, and the emotional pull of the actual spaceflight, with excellent editing stitching the never-before-seen archival footage and key interviews into an exciting, compelling account. That being said, older viewers that already watched the Tom Hanks drama would likely not find anything new in this film, but Apollo 13: Survival would be a decent documentary to those who have never heard of the spacecraft.
The story
Using original footage and interviews, this documentary tells the nail-biting story of Apollo 13 and the struggle to bring its astronauts safely home.
April 1970. After the US successfully sent men to the moon, more trips were planned to explore certain sites and take geological samples for science. However, one mission turned deadly when an oxygen tank ruptured, leaving the three person crew in a precarious situation.
Given that most of what we know about the incident comes directly from a memoir co-written by Commander James A. Lovell Jr. (since one crew member died, and the other wasn’t interested to talk about it), it makes sense that the documentary is a tad more focused on the commander and his family than the other crew members.
It’s pretty interesting to release this at a time when the world’s scientists are making plans to go to Mars.
The details
Moonage Daydream
Brett Morgen
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Benjamin Ree
Diego Maradona
Asif Kapadia
John Candy: I Like Me
Colin Hanks
Descendant
Margaret Brown
Mr. Bachmann and His Class
Female director & Maria Speth
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
David Hinton
The Missing Picture
Rithy Panh
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
