Apollo 13-A Tense and Moving Approach to an Iconic Lunar Mission

The true story of the Apollo 13 lunar mission was already abundant with drama and tension. So, all Ron Howard and screenwriters William Broyles Jr and Al Reinert had to do was put the pieces together piece by piece, providing moment after moment of things going wrong for these characters to sell the tension of this story.

It's that tension and buildup that makes the film so successful. After a slow start that provides some exposition and light character-building, Apollo 13 gets going once the mission begins. There, the film provides moment after moment of characters doing routine checks and going through the motions, where the film then provides one obstacle after another. That tension throughout makes the film so engaging, which Ron Howard captures through tense close-ups and slight camera pans that emphasize the tightness of the film's central locations of the Odyssey ship and the Housten NASA control board. It also provides a genuine emotional core to the film, as through scenes of the astronauts' families watching the events unfold, you grow emotionally invested in watching these astronauts attempt to get home, which makes the ending all the more moving.

I also find something so compelling about how the film relishes the technical side of its story. Unlike most films about historic space missions, Apollo 13 emphasizes every technical aspect of its story, whether through scenes of characters doing mathematics, switching dials, doing tests, or discussing every technical aspect of the mission. It makes for a space movie that takes a meticulous, intricate approach to its story's science and technical side, and I find that incredibly compelling.

As mentioned, the film does have a bit of a rough start. Not only is the film's opening act slightly slow and unengaging, but the film also throws you right into the middle of things, showing these characters already prepared for the mission and rushing through much of the preparation process. This approach to the first act feels slightly alienating and has weirdly rushed pacing. The film alleviated this issue once the mission started, and it fully got going. However, the third act did begin to drag out after a while, as the film spends much of it with scenes of the astronauts doing something and waiting for the mission control's response and vice versa.

Apollo 13, while not without some wonky pacing in its first and third acts, is still a thoroughly entertaining film. It knows precisely how to make its story all the more tense and engaging, and it's also focused wholeheartedly on each technical aspect of its story. But through all the tension and technicality, at its core, the film is an incredibly moving story of human cooperation and perseverance.

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