8.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.1 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
The true story of how NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 and its crew to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage.
Starring: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed HarrisAdventure | 100% |
History | 53% |
Drama | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
Czech: DTS 5.1
Hungarian: DTS 5.1
Italian: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovenian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Bonus View (PiP)
BD-Live
D-Box
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Though it’s more than a little embarrassing for me to admit it, my grandmother was one of those vestiges of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who resolutely refused to believe we had actually landed on the moon. Now she wasn’t technologically savvy enough to elaborate long scenarios of a super secret New Jersey television studio where countless millions were duped into believing Man had taken its first small step onto our nearest satellite. Hers was a kinder, simpler reaction that quite simply decided that it was impossible to fly to the moon, and that was that. Unfortunately she had slipped into the early stages of Alzheimer’s by the time Apollo 13 made its fated flight, one fraught with more mishaps and danger than probably any other launch in the relatively early years of the United States’ space program, and so I’m unsure what she would have made out of a nation gripped by the encroaching panic that three of its astronaut heroes might be, to borrow the title of a rather interestingly synchronistically named contemporary film of the time, Marooned, left to die a slow, painful death in the cold shell of a capsule disabled by an improbable series of events.
It’s a well known fact that many hotels and even office buildings routinely renumber their thirteenth story as fourteen in order to prevent the superstitious from being afraid to get off the elevator at that point. Of course, NASA didn’t have that option with Apollo 13, though, as the film Apollo 13 makes clear in one of its amusing sidebars, it may not have even thought about it as spaceflight had become so supposedly passé at that point that some television stations refused to even carry coverage of the event. This becomes all the more incredible when we look back on what seems to be almost Stone Age technology with which Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) soared into space and almost--almost--made yet another moon landing. 2009 saw a glut of quite excellent releases surrounding Man’s first lunar landing forty years previously, but it’s rather alarming to see how blasé the world was a mere year or so later when Apollo 13 wafted skyward on what would become a nightmare journey.
Tom Hanks is Commander Jim Lovell.
Apollo 13 blasts onto Blu-ray with a decent, if not overwhelmingly excellent, AVC encoded 1080p image with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This is most certainly a step up from the previously released Special Edition standard def DVD, but it's still plagued by inconsistent levels of detail and an unappealing softness at least some of the time. In the space sequences things are mostly excellent, with deep and rich black levels and brilliant contrast. Detail here can be exceptional, with every scratch inside the capsule clearly visible and the encroaching frost seeming to almost grow before the viewer's very eyes. Aside from some of the wacky 70's fashions worn by the women, there isn't a lot of color here, and in fact the palette seems deliberately muted in order to maintain focus on the emotional content of the film. Flesh tones are lifelike and what color there is is nicely saturated. Depth of field is good to excellent throughout the feature. We do get a few instances of moire patterns and aliasing on some of the more finely textured apparel and other scrimshaw patterns on the sets, but they're very fleeting.
Apollo 13's DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix toddles along rather uneventfully for the first act of the film and may lead some listeners to feel it's more than a bit underwhelming. Even in these dialogue heavy sequences, however, we're treated to sterling clarity and precise fidelity. Once blast off occurs, however, we're finally immersed in some wonderful surround activity, and the space sequences are similarly filled with some excellent foley effects which dart to and fro and give a good approximation of what being in an enclosed capsule must be like. Dialogue throughout the film is handled excellently, with some really finely nuanced differences between "open air" speech and that delivered from within the confines of a spacesuit. James Horner's wonderful score also fills the surround channels with some of his most expansive music. There are no anomalies of any kind to report on this soundtrack. This is a very intimate "epic" film, and so may not provide the nonstop, slam bang surround activity that contemporary audiences may have come to expect, but it is an excellent piece in and of itself.
A nice array of extras, most ported over from the previously released HD-DVD and/or Special Edition SD-DVD, supplement this release. They include:
Houston, there's absolutely no problem whatsoever with this wonderful film, which still holds up quite admirably a decade and a half after its release. Viscerally exciting, compelling and unexpectedly touching for such a tech-heavy film, it offers wonderfully restrained performances and the sure directorial hand of Ron Howard.
1995
Universal 100th Anniversary
1995
Academy Award Series
1995
20th Anniversary Edition | 4K Remaster
1995
Pop Art
1995
1995
1995
1995
Includes "Silent Space" version
2013
Extended Edition
2015
2014
1998
2015
1997
30th Anniversary Edition
1983
2016
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1968
2012
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2012
1956
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1969