Rating  - Makes me feel like I went to the moon myself
I have seen many documentaries on the various NASA moonshots, but this is the first one that makes me feel like I've *been* there. The filmmaker takes a controversial approach: he combines all the Apollo missions into one "meta-mission." That didn't give me trouble. What did was a brief section that shows the Apollo 13 disaster (sans the famous line "Houston, we have a problem!") that ends rather tidily, with things seemingly being fixed in about ten minutes and the astronauts happily and safely speeding onto their journey. Needless to say, it did not happen that way, and I would not have included this footage at all if the purpose of the film was a spiritual, ethereal documentary about space travel, which it seems to be. (Incidentally, the reviewer who says they included Gemini footage of a spacewalk has got it wrong. Apollo astronauts did perform "trans-earth EVAs," as they were called, to insert and retrieve film from the cameras on the outside of the lunar modules.)
This is sort of an IMAX movie before there was IMAX. It feels very larger than life, even on the confines of a TV screen. Brian Eno's bass-heavy, slow electronic music gives it that special otherworldly quality we've come to expect in these kinds of films. The lack of a narrator is a plus. Often they just get away in these films. Instead we get the astronaut's voice-overs while we watch spectacular footage, without supers to identify the speaker each time, as that too would have been distracting.
The footage itself is the real reason to watch this DVD. As I said, I've seen many documentaries over the years on NASA and the space race, but I've never seen a lot of the footage here, and one wonders why when it is so spectacular. Throughout I kept wondering how NASA managed to allow people to lose interest in its doings during the 1970s and 80s with material like this in its vaults. We've all seen astronauts suiting up before, or riding the launchpad elevator into the capsule, but here the filmmaker stays with the astronauts through the whole procedure. We're with them as they strap in and actually blast off, and see what they see through the small porthole. We ride down to the moon with them, we ride in the "moon buggy" with them--rather than just getting a shot or two. Much of the last section, the best part, follows geologist/astronaut Harrison Schmidt as he and astronaut Gene Cernan travel deep into a canyon many miles from their touchdown site. They dig up rocks and survey the scene, but they also can't help but have fun--THEY'RE ON THE MOON, DAMMIT! They sing and dance and cavort and fall down a lot, running the very real risk of damaging their spacesuits. They're acting like little kids on a playground, and who can blame them? It was there that I felt like this was like no documentary I'd ever seen. Usually you get astronauts raising flags and saying things like, "Roger Houston, we copy you. Rendezvous time is oh-eight-hundred hours." This film showed them as human, and by extension I can imagine the first tingle the likes of Columbus and Magellan had when they set foot on exotic shores.
Picture is as good as NASA footage can allow, meaning sometimes it's grainy and sometimes it's surprisingly clear. Sound is standard issue NASA, but Eno's music is clean and rich. This film would be spectacular in a big-screen theater or even a planetarium, but there's also much to enjoy on a standard TV. Had they left off the jarring Apollo 13 disaster, I'd give this five stars. As it is, it's still essential viewing if you love documentaries, love space, and love NASA's glory years. Once again, Criterion's tastes are flawless.
Rating  - Amazing Visual Representation of the Apollo Program
This is not a point by point exploration of historical events but it is certainly a documentary in that it explores historical events though visual images and recorded interviews. It is an overview in montage of the Apollo program. If you are a stodgy historical stickler then find another film. However, if you are looking for a stunningly beautiful snapshot of one of the most amazing endeavors in human history then this is for you. For all Mankind will fire the imagination and inspire the mind.
Rating  - Looks more like a lavish promo for NASA than a documentary
I guess it depends on how much footage of the Apollo missions you want to watch, but you get decidedly more viewing pleasure for the buck with the HBO series, From the Earth to the Moon - The Signature Edition, which also had unlimited access to NASA in making this documentary -- 720 minutes as opposed to 79 minutes plus whatever extras Criterion tossed in. For All Mankind is visually appealling but it doesn't give you anywhere near the depth of information that the HBO series provides, plus it loses much of its appeal on the small screen.
Rating - Excellent
Such a huge subject. Well covered and very moving using nothing but actual taped communication from astronauts and capcom. Not narrated so not particularly great as reference material, but very powerful in getting the message across.
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