Rated PG-13 for some disturbing sequences, and language.
Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego (A Jealous Ghost and King of the Hill)
Starring Warren Cristie, Lloyd Owen and Ryan Robbins
The truth is NOT in this film…neither is the quality.
Officially, Apollo 17, launched December 17th, 1972, was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December of 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the US Department of Defense. What you will see is the “actual footage” which the astronauts captured on that mission. While NASA denies its authenticity, others say it’s the real reason we’ve never gone back to the moon.
Okay, first of all you need to know that this review is filled with spoilers. I hate when someone ruins a movie for me, so if you’re like me and would rather not know what happened in this movie stop reading now…but after you see it and are mad you wasted money and an hour and a half of your life…try not to hear me say I told you so.
In order to enjoy this film I needed to believe that there was an Apollo 18 mission, that it did land on the moon and that the moon is in fact inhabited by killer rocks that turn into spiders. Oh and one more big one…I needed to believe that although the two space capsules collide at the end, somehow the video made its way back to earth – not going to happen.
The cast of three characters is definitely on the small side and the performances are even smaller.
Seriously, how many of these fake documentary movies are we going to have to suffer through? Blair Witch which was good when it first came out but since then we’ve seen paranormal movies, alien abduction movies and others that make us as an audience have to believe that what we’re seeing is in fact real footage. These filmmakers went out of their way and worked way too hard to make this video look choppy and dated, unfortunately none of it rang true.
Sure I had really low expectations as I walked into the theater but there was nothing about Apollo 18 that rose to even meet those extremely low expectations. It’s a Coaster for sure.
SHOULD KIDS SEE IT?
There is 1 F-word and a few milder swearing. But mostly it’s the disturbing imagines throughout the film.
Conversation Starter
Three Simple Questions (with Answers You May Be Looking for):
Q: What’s the message/theme of this movie?
A: The theme of this movie is uncovering the “truth.” The movie begins and ends challenging the audience to go to lunartruth.com to “discover the truth” for themselves. Of course everything in this movie is fictional but as Christians we are charged with discovering the real truth.
Q: How do you suppose we—as serious Christ-followers—should react to this movie?
A: As a serious Christ follower, we should follow the example of the Bereans and search the Scriptures to discover the truth. Take a quick moment to read Acts 17:11. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
So why were the Bereans of more noble character?
What do you think Paul means when he said, “They received the message with great eagerness”?
What do you think Paul means when he said, “They examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”?
Q: How can we move from healthy, Bible-based opinions about this movie to actually living out those opinions?
A: So what are some ways we receive the message with great eagerness and examine the Scriptures every day to see if what we hear in church/youth group is true?
We don’t have to go to some website to “discover the truth,” we need to be a Berean.
