Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Using original footage and interviews, this documentary tells the nail-biting story of Apollo 13 and the struggle to bring its astronauts safely home.
Apollo 13: Survival is a competent and gripping documentary retelling of one of NASA's most dramatic missions, leveraging archival footage and contemporary interviews effectively. However, the story of Apollo 13 has been told many times before — most definitively in Ron Howard's 1995 feature — and this documentary adds little new perspective or revelatory material. The archival footage is well-curated and the pacing keeps tension alive despite the audience knowing the outcome. Acting is not a meaningful category for a talking-heads documentary, earning a below-average score by default. Novelty is low given the well-worn nature of the subject and fairly conventional documentary format. The ending benefits from the inherent drama of the real events but doesn't offer any surprising editorial commentary.