Apollo 13 (1995)

"I don't want to hear about what they haven't got.  I want to hear about what they got." -Gene Krantz
"The constellation urIne." -Jim Lovell

Tom Hanks is the Joe Dimaggio of late 20th century cinema.  Hit after hit after hit after hit.  Oscar night after Oscar night after Oscar night.  Its kinda incredible when you IMDB him.

As for Apollo 13, Hanks delivers a subtle and thus believable Jim Lovell.  I thought the real home run was the scene where he is drunk in his backyard with his thumb over the moon.

Apollo 13 is a Ron Howard film.  I have one or two of his movies on my blog currently and another one coming up.  He is a competent if not occasionally genius film maker.  In the case of Apollo 13, I have to applaud Ron's ability to create dramatic tension in a story that would lack tension if told in a deft way.  When I thought about this, I wondered if Ron modeled Apollo 13 as the reverse of a prison break movie.  Instead of applying an unknown and escalating series of new threats.  He simply worked backwards to take threats away from our heroes one at a time and in order.  Making an order of operations centric movie exciting should be rewarded.  Well done.

Ratings:
Apollo Astronauts:  See it
Slide rule enthusiasts:  See it
Engineers:  See it
Medical practitioners: Skip it.  (The measles....pbhhhh)
Six degrees of Kevin Bacon: An essential

On a scale from human factors to human division, I give Apollo 13 3.89 out of 5 stars.