Gonzalo López-Gallego's "Apollo 18" (2011) has conquered new frontiers of flopping. Here is a movie of such astoundingly poor quality that it even misses the "so bad it's good" territory, settling instead into the realm of painful, absolute disaster.
Set in the middle of the Cold War, this film profiles two men who are ordered to land on the moon, allegedly to set up machines to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles coming from Russia. As their time on the moon transpires, a chance encounter with a dead Soviet cosmonaut leads Captain Ben Anderson (Warren Christie) and Commander Nate Walker (Lloyd Owen) to slowly understand the dark reason they were sent to the moon in the first place.
Shot in documentary style, the film alternates between handheld and fixed cameras in the Apollo 18 shuttle. This movie clearly endeavors to be the next evolution of "Paranormal Activity" (2007), and while the prospect of "Paranormal Activity" in space is awesome, "Apollo 18" forgets the two very basic reasons it was such a success. Firstly, "Paranormal Activity" only really worked well as a gimmick in the original movie, and secondly, the use of a tripod ensured the audience would not be sickened by wild, jerking flails of motion.
As it stands, the astronauts spend the majority of their time walking around on the moon, holding the camera to the side. While this is certainly realistic (one could hardly expect them to keep the camera up at all times), it also means that the shots swing aggressively around the surface of the moon. Perhaps a rock aficionado will be overjoyed to see such attention to his hobby, but the rest of the audience will have to endure boring shots of moon turf for nearly one quarter of the entire run time.
Moreover, because this is the year 1974, it stands to reason that the cameras would be unreliable and switch frequently to static, have the picture re-adjust or produce grainy, unfocused pictures. These nauseating techniques are used to cut between different shots, lurching between angles, lighting and computer-generated imagery.
It honestly appears as though director López-Gallego either has absolutely no understanding of proper filmmaking technique or has chosen to ignore the past 60 years of film history in favor of an amateurish auteurism that may be even more sickening than his magnum opus (if that's possible). The overall feeling is reminiscent of 1980s MTV commercials that jump wildly from image to image — the kind of ad that is barely tolerable even at 30 seconds, let alone 90 minutes.
And, because, "In space, no one can hear you scream," the director brings further affront to the filmmaking institution: There is no sound in the entire movie aside from technical beeping, heavy breathing and two unlikeable characters either trying to find a radio signal or jumping at the noises they're hearing outside.
From the perspective of any moviegoer, these directorial decisions are close to inexcusable but can be forgiven as long as the monster of the monster movie is in any way compelling. However, "Apollo 18's" version of a moon monster is laughably stupid and would have had the audience in stitches if the cinematography hadn't made everyone too dizzy.
Apparently the satellites set up on the moon were actually beacons to draw a bunch of moon rock spiders. These little guys (and I mean little) are everywhere, growling and knocking stuff over like passive-aggressive house pets and are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the moon. After one of the crewmen becomes infected by the spider venom and slowly deteriorates, the other makes every attempt to escape while being hunted by his partner and some scary-looking stones.
But this leaves a few things unanswered: How did every other astronaut that landed on the moon survive this ordeal? How could the U.S. government find out about these predatory rocks? The answer, of course, is a resounding, "Eh, whatever."
So that's "Apollo 18." Apparently our space program was cancelled because the moon was just far too lively a place for us to keep up with. Sent off with a pathetic cliffhanger, this mess of a movie adds nothing to catalogues of art and stands as a giant sneer in the face of basic and exceptional moviemaking achievement. Calling it a "film" is truly the greatest insult to the industry.
