Rave reviews got me out of the house to see David Sington’s documentary about the Apollo space program. And while it was certainly watchable, I could easily have waited to see it on the home screen. Some of the footage is dramatic and beautiful, but after decades of CGI space travel in movies, it looks less than spectacular. It’s ultimately more an interview piece with the surviving moon mission astronauts, and they are indeed interesting characters. There is some but not enough effort at historical context, from JFK’s initial invocation of the moon as the goal of the decade, through the tarnishing of grand Cold War gestures in the debacle of Vietnam, along with domestic unrest. For a long time the space program has seemed to me a government boondoggle for the military-industrial complex, but this film did resurrect the moment of “wonderful but ephemeral” achievement “for all mankind.” From the perspective of today, it seems inspiring yet foolish, an enormous waste of resources though a celebration of human resourcefulness. The film made me remember, but didn’t make me rethink. (2007, Images, n.) *7* (MC-84.)
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