'Apollo 13: Survival' Wows Critics

         On September 5, 2024, Netflix released 'Apollo 13: Survival', which has earned rave reviews from critics, currently holding at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the documentary, "Just nine months after Neil Armstrong's historic moon landing, NASA faced the greatest crisis in its history. On the night of April 13th 1970, a catastrophic explosion rocked the Apollo 13 spacecraft, stranding three astronauts halfway to the moon. Within a few hours, the primary oxygen and power supply would be gone, setting the stage for one of the great survival stories in human history. What unfolded over the next four days was a rescue mission like no other; a knife-edge, life-or-death drama, broadcast in real time to the watching world." But what did the critics say?

       Tom Shone of Sunday Times notes, "There are small fillets of new material and things that seemed like clichés in Howard’s film are proven to be true. The story really did seem to unite the world, however briefly, in wishing those three men home." Adding, "We seem to have had a spate of documentaries about subjects made famous by feature films — first The Commandant’s Shadow, about Rudolf Höss, the commandant at Auschwitz who was the inspiration for Jonathan’s Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, and now Apollo 13: Survival, which tells much the same story as Ron Howard’s absurdly rousing feature of 1995 starring Tom Hanks. It even begins with the line: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Less familiar is the voice of the astronaut Jim Lovell recorded right after an electrical fault shorted the power on their moon-bound craft: “We’re in deep shit.”

       Emily DuGranrut of In Review Online says, "Of course, most people are already at least peripherally aware of this story thanks to Ron Howard’s 1995 Apollo 13, but nearly 30 years later, newly released footage and audio from the mission has come forward to form the backbone of Apollo 13: Survival, courtesy of director Peter Middleton. In making the documentary, Middleton faced a difficult battle — how could he showcase the true story of these men and those around them without it just feeling like a less dramatic version of the Tom Hanks-starring Oscar winner and cultural touchstone? Thankfully, he manages both to keep Survival from feeling like mere cinematic retread and to avoid the common historical documentary pitfall of presenting what amounts a visual reading of a Wikipedia article." Concluding, "Middleton accomplishes this largely by forgoing the route of traditional talking head interviews. Instead, Survival places audio of the key players atop archival footage of the event, an aesthetic gambit that results in a distinctly immersive film, one which places viewers directly in the cramped, failing spacecraft and makes it easier to slide directly into the astronauts’ fear and determination. We also learn more about the ordeal from the perspective of those on the ground, including Jim Lovell’s wife, Marilyn, and daughter, Barbara, whose voiceovers add emotional depth and personal stakes to the narrative, highlighting a gentler human element of space exploration’s most dangerous moments than the high drama of the 1995 film allowed for. Indeed, in scrubbing away the Hollywood sheen from our knowledge of the almost-disaster, Middleton is able to fix more focus on the psychological strain that all involved in the experience endured, balancing that emotional weight with the matter-of-factness of the newly-released footage and audio. But the real question with documentaries of this ilk — both the kind that tackle known narratives (the Apollo 13 crisis) and those that trade in popular nonfiction film material (space) — is whether anything fresh can be found in the familiar. With regard to Apollo 13: Survival, the answer is yes, with Middleton crafting a visceral experience that effectively reminds us just how terrifying space travel can be — and still is."

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

       John Serba of Decider praises the documentary, stating, "Apollo 13: Survival has – forgive me – all the right stuff: Fascinating, intimate archival footage. Crucial contextual clips. A nose for detail that never weighs down its expeditious pace (the film is a brisk 96 minutes). And a purely visual narrative drive that foregoes talking heads for a focused tick-tock of perhaps the most harrowingly tense moment in the history of space travel. I mean, we know what happens here. It’s a relatively happy ending. It’s a survival story, not a tragedy. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hang on every suspenseful moment, or hold your breath during the brief few minutes (that feel like several eternities) when the Apollo 13 craft loses communication with the ground as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. That’s the nature of a highly relevant bit of history – and of a well-made film about it. Sure, every movie about astronauts trafficks heavily in idealist platitudes: Look at what scientific ingenuity and the power of the human mind and spirit can achieve! It can not only put people in space and exploring the surface of the Moon, but also extract them from the horrors that potentially occur when terrible, terrible reality impeaches upon optimistic dreams. If you’re weary of these notions and are tempted to call them tropes, well, then your ass is showing, you cynic. We should be all about this type of documentary, with its emotional rollercoaster and you-are-there-in-the-moment approach to archival storytelling. You could say Apollo 13: Survival is a little dry at times, and like other films of its ilk. But to say it isn’t nevertheless riveting would be a lie."