Apollo 11 Review
Apollo 11 The Official Jack Review
Stanley Kubrick really outdid himself on this one.
Apollo 11 is a documentary that I knew I would love. I obsess over anything with to do with space, and a documentary filled with never before seen footage sounded like an absolute delight. The instant I walked into that IMAX theater I knew I was going to get so much more than I bargained for.
The film is not your typical documentary, there is no voiceover recorded for the documentary, they aren't interviewing anyone about the experience with some b-roll. No. This is a complete dump of everything NASA has kept locked up for 50 years. They recorded everything. They use all of the radio communications to tell the story of the launch, so as the audience we just live in the world that NASA lived in, whether in the cockpit or in the mission control room. The footage itself is jaw-dropping and more spectacle filled than any blockbuster film I've seen in a while. Since it was all recorded on actual film, it allowed for it to be transferred to 4K, and the quality is immaculate. It felt like I was watching Interstellar at times, with the film grain in there, but the colors and the crispness of the image boggled my mind. Of course, some of the security camera and shots from inside the cockpit in the middle of space were lower quality, but that just made the jump back to mission control even more impressive.
Apollo 11 also documents the entire mission, we hear the communication between the crew up in space with all the different members of mission control on the ground. They lined up the radio sounds with the actual video recordings, which helped drive home the fact that this all happened. Imagining the sheer amount of footage that director/editor Todd Douglas Miller had to sift through is amazing. The sound direction here was also amazing, there was nothing like the sound of the take-off as it just shook my seat almost as much as it was shaking my eardrums, but it dare not shake the big smile I had on my face. All of the music felt so natural throughout, it was intense when it needed to be and more electronic and bass-heavy at some of the slower and more deliberate moments.
It's funny how this released so soon after First Man, but I think the two pair very nicely together. There are some shots in First Man that seem like they are straight out of the real footage. I love how First Man gives you the prequel, for the most part, everything leading up the actual mission and gives you the specific personal perspective of Commander Neil Armstrong (S/O to UC!); meanwhile, this is the broader but fully detailed mission itself. I would love to watch the two of them back-to-back sometime down the line because it would be a really cool experience.
Overall, I highly recommend seeing this on the largest screen possible, which won't be IMAX much longer but it is still in theaters for a little longer. It is named a documentary, but it felt like a real story driven film and it pulls it off perfectly.
Final Score: 9.5/10