I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM... BUT APPARENTLY THEY CAN HEAR YOU CHITTERING...

Apollo 18 (2011) US/Canada

What's worse than a freaking space movie that's supposed to leave you all claustrophobic and scared? One that bores you to freaking death, that's what. Now my left arm does NOT work so this will be short and sweet but I had to do this review for the hundreds of voices in my head that screamed at me that I wasted a portion of my life with this movie I might as well do something with it.



'But', I argued, 'My arm, my health, my...'

SHUT UP. YOU ARE FREAKING PITIFUL. YOU WRITE A COLUMN ON HELLO KITTY? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED WHEN YOU STARTED THIS COLUMN?


So, head hung low (I think, I dunno, I may be hallucinating) I decided to report the basics on this non-horror non-science fiction movie.

Here's some dates to really bore you... umm I mean educate you:

On 7/20/69 there was Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong was the first man to moonwalk... err... walk on the moon.

Despite that stellar performance secretly faked by Stanley Kubrick (HAH! Got You!), in 1970 the missions for Apollo 18, 19, 20 were canceled - no money left for Kubrick... umm I mean NASA.

BUT in 12/7/72 they managed to have Apollo 17 make one final lunar mission.

BUT WAS IT??? Yes dummy, of course it was. This is their movie:

In 2011, 84 hours of classified footage is uploaded to www.lunartruth.com (don't bother, the website is just a promo page for the movie). This film was edited from that footage. Pffft, I can't even put that up with a straight face.


The first thing I noticed was the voice of one of the three doomed idiots of this supposed secret mission - SECRET? How the hell could Florida launch a space rocket and no one notice? This was super duper paranoia times remember. And the US manages not only... ah, never mind.

Oh yeah, the voice. One of the three doomed idiots played a lycanthrope on a show on SyFy called Sanctuary - which I really liked until I realized that every episode had a checklist, no exceptions, no substitutions - except for maybe a "special episode" or two. No, I won't put it here, my arm doesn't work, remember? The dude's name is Ryan Robbins and thankfully he has other work on his resume' 'cause this movie wasn't going to help his career any.

So like I said we had three idi... brave men to go on one last mission. See, the government wanted cameras on the moon so we could keep an eye on the Soviets. Hey, if the Soviets couldn't tell that the US just launched a freaking rocket... but I digest. Dammit dictation software, I said digress!


Ryan Robbins' character gets to float in the Freedom command module while the other two go to the big rock - again. We then get a seen-in-almost-every-freaking-movie-since-1999 montage of them setting up the equipment (PSD5 cameras - sounds like a disease to me). Until they find <gasp> a Soviet lander. Oh, I see - they got away with launching a rocket without the world knowing 'cause the Soviets did too. 

No, wait, I don't see - WTH did everybody just go deaf and blind in the '70's? And since they never came back, where was this 'found footage' (because yup, this movie is just that much garbage folks) discovered if it was on the freaking moon and nobody has ever gone back? Huh? Huh? Huh?


Woof, man I'm getting paranoid now - half of that paragraph the dictating software did by itself. I think. How much alcohol is in a bottle of Nyquil anyway?



So off and on the two dummies on the moon hear chittering. And stuff happens like their flag disappears (I cried during that part - I WANT MY MTV! What do you mean that wasn't the flag, I watched it on TV for years!) and yes, we have a rover roll over <chuckles like a mad woman> that's freaking funny if you think about it. Things crash on the moon? Really?

Okay, after finding the dead Soviet cosmonaut who looks... very dead (apparently in space, no one gets preserved even though there's no atmosphere there to aid decay), the two realize that they've pretty much been duped into a mission to keep an eye on the chittering creepy crawlies and it pisses them off a bit. Plus their space 'rocks' keep moving around - WTH?


Finally one gets cut and a rock is found under his skin. Yeah, I can identify with that - 'cause my arm is... never mind. It gets infected and spreads through his bloodstream until he insists that he's not going back but the other guy has to.

After about an hour of arguing and chittering, the dude gets the Soviet lander working (SOMETHING wrecked the systems in their lander - pfffft) and takes off, but he takes his samples with him. The last time he sees his partner the chittering rocks (yes you read that right) have become spider-like CGI crap and are swarming inside his helmet. Yuck.


As he approaches the command module, DOD (Department of Duh... sorry I guess it's Defense) tells them, 'Sorry kids, we pretty much knew this would happen and you're not coming home Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.'


But he wants to go home and so keeps approaching the module - until the creepy crawlies that of course infected him too cause him to speed up and collide with the command module and the film cuts out. And we get more 'information' because a printed line on a screen is a lot cheaper than using a real story or plot.

According to all official reports, Apollo 17 was the final lunar mission.

Lt. Colonel John Grey (Ryan Robbins) was killed in a crash during a training mission over Tallahassee, FL. His body was never recovered.

Cmdr. Nathan Walker's (Lloyd Owen) F-14 crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Kadena Air Force Base. His body was never recovered.

Cpt. Benjamin Anderson (Warren Christie) was killed during a mid-air evacuation over the East China Sea. His body was never recovered.

Apollo Missions brought 840 pounds of lunar rock samples back to earth. Hundreds were given away to dignitaries of foreign countries. Many of those "gifts" were stolen or are now missing.

Theirs is the spirit that built America.

And this movie is what is tearing it apart. Thanks for the help Canada.