Apollo 18 (2011)

Ugh, I guess I’ll have to add this to my list of big disappointments for 2011. Apollo 18 does have a very intriguing premise, but this film can be so BORING. I struggled to stay awake during the first half of the film, because everything felt so dull and lifeless. Everything picks up, when the aliens come into play, but this film didn’t do it for me. Yeah, Apollo 18 does provide a few jump scares every now and then, and the found-footage style of filmmaking does give this one a strong realistic feeling, but for the most part Apollo 18 doesn’t deliver.

The jump scares are okay, but I couldn't feel the tension. The audience must suffer through a series of long conversations between the two main characters (Warren Christie and Lloyd Owen), and certain conversations just drag. They try to make up for the unbelievable boredom towards the end. They do throw in some decent suspense, as the astronauts try to escape from the moon, but it was already too late. Apollo 18 had already sunk deep into the shitter, and nothing could save this film.

Also, I had trouble buying into the story here. Am I really supposed to believe aliens are secretly living on the moon? Some of the aliens are huge, so how could they hide for so long? The story wants you to believe the government pulled the “cover up” card, but why would they want to hide dangerous and vicious aliens on the moon? Why haven’t the aliens tried to come to Earth yet? The aliens who are hiding on the moon aren’t friendly at all. They obviously don’t like humans, so why haven’t they tried to attack Earth? The American astronauts find the dead body of a cosmonaut. Of course, he ran into the aliens, and things didn’t go too well for him. His operational spaceship is STILL on the moon, so why doesn’t anyone else know about the cosmonaut’s death? Yeah, I know, they were trying to play “the government conspiracy” card here, but I couldn’t believe it. Russia sent a man to space, he is killed by aliens, and then the Americans send men to space as guinea pigs, so they can find out what happened? Aliens, who could bring harm to the planet Earth are killing men in space, and the governments want to keep this a secret?!?!? Yeah, right.

You might enjoy this, if you’re into government conspiracies and found-footage horror films, but I thought Apollo 18 was pretty awful. This film provided plenty of facepalming moments for me, and this has to be one of the most boring and uninteresting films I’ve ever seen. The short run time doesn’t help (1hr. and 26min.), because Apollo 18 was doomed for failure from the start.

Final Rating: 1/10