Comments on: APOLLO 18: The Truth is Out There

By: vic sage

vic sage — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:29:21 +0000

Many a true word spoken in jest.

By: Brandon Nowalk

Brandon Nowalk — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:29:32 +0000

That’s certainly the consensus, though I haven’t seen a pan as penetrating as yours! But…

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR APOLLO 18

To me Apollo 18 isn’t paranoid about our fellow citizens. The guys risk their lives to save each other over and over, even after it’s clear that one of them is dangerous. The paranoia is firmly directed at the all-powerful, unseen institutions. Even NASA has been taken over by a more powerful, more deadly institution.

The problem for me is how that ending confirms the rightness of that institution. Instead of a big Paths of Glory thing where the pawns ignore their commands to die and help each other to live, it turns out the DOD was right because they’re all infected. We’re supposed to want them dead now to save the planet. It’s a step too far for me, and one that sinks it further the more I think about it.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 03:04:17 +0000

Apollo 18 is the low rent version of The Expendables. And the Expendables was uber low rent to start with. In both films, customers are attracted, or lured, to cliche ridden hack work through an appeal to their biases.

For the Expendables it’s an atavistic allure. The chance to revisit a politically incorrect past, where a man is a man, and killings are performed with relish and gusto.

For Apollo 18 it’s the chance to luxuriate in turgid, mind numbing paranoia about our fellow citizens and institutions.

In their attempt to plumb the depths of partianship, both films move 180 degrees in opposite directions, and meet at the point of idiocy.