ViewGuide

Created Mar 30, 2008 03:26PM PST • Edited Jun 02, 2013 02:50AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Gripping from start to finish, though the end is never in doubt.

   Stands as a testament to American heroism, ingenuity and bravura movie-making.

   Tom Hanks – in one of his iconic performances – heads a stellar cast atop their games.

   The screenplay introduced not one, but two catchphrases into the popular lexicon.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Where to start? Oh, yeah, with Tom Hanks, whose Jim Lovell is one of his great American everymen, by turns charming, brave and idealistic.

   Kathleen Quinlan, as his better half, delivers a breakthrough performance for herself and for the gender balancing of heroic movies of this ilk.

   The All-Star cast includes the estimable Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Gary Sinese, as Hanks’ three fellow astronauts, and the great Ed Harris as mission director Gene Kranz. It is a measure of the heft of their performances and the import of this movie that Apollo 13 looms large in the filmographies of these A List actors.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    A well balanced story, iconic dialogue, evocative music, and benchmark visuals make this a perfect film. Story balance? The family dynamics are nearly as interesting as the main storyline.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

    Ron Howard hit the critical and commercial jackpot with Apollo 13, perhaps his best movie as a director. He makes short work of the underlying story’s technical complexity, nerdish teamwork, and lack of a true villain, delivering an easy-to-follow picture that succeeds as family drama, technical whodunit, and inspiring organizational case study.

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    “Houston, we have a problem” and “Failure is not an option” have become two of the most iconic catchphrases in our culture. Few screenplays are as fecund – Casablanca comes to mind.

    Even more, the dialogue creates a steady stream of heart-in-your-throat moments, such as when the Lovell’s littlest boy – upon being informed that something went wrong with Daddy’s spacecraft – plaintively asks Mom: “Was it the door?”

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Spirit in the Sky indeed!

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    From the huge scale of the Saturn V to the intimate spaces of the Command Module and LEM, the movie doesn’t flaunt its FX, just delivers an amazing verisimilitude.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

    Kevin Bacon’s Jack Swigert employs a long neck beer bottle and a rocks glass to great effect when picking up a groupie.

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Salty 1.6

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    That this movie appears to be completely natural is a testament to its greatness and to the inherent drama of the true story it relates.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.1

    I believe some of the intra-crew conflict was punched up for dramatic purposes.

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0