Opie has finally delivered the goods!
Ron Howard, who began his show-biz career as young Opie on the "Andy Griffith Show" and gained additional fame as '50s teenager Richie Cunningham in "Happy Days" before shifting to the big screen to become a successful director with such hit films as "Splash," "Parenthood," "Cocoon," "Backdraft" and "Far and Away," has long been considered a solid commercial filmmaker.But he has never been able to come up with the winning formula for a movie that would gain the respect of critics, much less voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Until now. "Apollo 13" would seem to be the movie he's been striving for all these years.
With help from a superb ensemble cast, top-of-the-line special effects and an intelligent, witty screenplay that tells a true story filled with suspense and human drama, Howard has come up with a potential box-office and critical smash. And yes, it may even be remembered come Oscar-nominating season.
It doesn't matter that we already know the outcome. In fact, for those of us old enough to remember the spring of 1970 when the real-life "Apollo 13" incident gripped the nation, it only revives memories, making the intricacies of what happened all the more horrifying.
That incident, of course, was a space capsule suddenly being crippled while on a journey to the moon, leaving three astronauts stranded with only a glimmer of hope that they would be able to return to Earth.
To make that return, astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) had to summon every ounce of courage, discipline and training, as they were coached by Mission Control experts (led by Ed Harris) and touched by the prayers of loved ones (most notably Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell).
What makes "Apollo 13" such a remarkable film, however, is that it relates in intricate detail the ingenuity of this teamwork without sacrificing the human side of the story. It also manages to re-create the period quite satisfactorily while never really feeling dated.
Hanks is terrific as Lovell but the film is very much an ensemble effort, and Paxton, Bacon and Gary Sinise as fellow astronaut Ken Mattingly, who was scrubbed from the mission but became a key player in the rescue, are equally fine. Harris (who played John Glenn in "The Right Stuff") is perfect as the level-headed, optimistic leader of the ground team, Loren Dean is very good as a flight controller who works with Mattingly to solve re-entry problems and Quinlan is also on-target as Lovell's wife, whose superstitious premonitions seem to foretell what's coming and who stoically (but not too idealistically) represents all the astronaut wives who watched and waited as their husbands explored outer space.
As usual, Howard's brother Clint and father Rance show up in small roles, but it is his mother, Jean Speegle Howard, who really delivers the goods in a touching performance as Lovell's mother.
The script, by William Broyles Jr. (TV's "China Beach") and documentarian Al Reinert ("For All Mankind"), nicely boils down Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger's book "Lost Moon" and all of the production aspects are top-notch.
The film's ad line is is the famous sentence spoken by Lovell, "Houston, we've got a problem."
But this film has no problem at all.
"Apollo 13" is rated PG for some cussing and some vulgar gags.