Richard Linklater's animated feature is about a nine year old in Houston in 1969 who is obsessed with pop culture. Not surprisingly, that quick bio pretty much also describes Linklater's himself. Stan (voiced by Milo Coy) is a fourth grader who lives in the shadow of NASA's Mission Control where his Dad (Bill Wise) works. Unlike Linklater (we assume), Stan literally gets plucked off the playground one day by Government officials and told that he is going to be sent to the Moon on a super secret mission as a sort of proving test before that July's Apollo 11 (hence the title).
In truth, it's the film's subtitle: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD that truly describes the movie (also written by Linklater). Jack Black plays the adult Stan who narrates (and narrates and narrates) the entire picture. After a brief intro, the movie spends a full fifty minutes going through Stan's day to day life before getting back to his Apollo mission. And, once it gets there, it's relatively brief, with the focus quickly turning to his family's anticipation for the actual Apollo 11 moon landing with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins.
Linklater has always had a laid back vibe to his movies (his first movie was SLACKER, after all), and here he indulges himself in all things 60s with references to Ouija boards, push-button phones, Drive-Ins, Dark Shadows after-school TV showings and Tang. The soundtrack is dominated not only by hit singles of the era by the Monkeys, The Association, The Archies etc. -- but also surf music, deep tracks and other 60s ephemera. When Stan goes to the movies to see 2001, PLANET OF THE APES or THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Linklater's animators go all out in recreating the look and feel of celluloid through animation. A whole montage is devoted to just the TV shows of the era - everything from The Munsters to Batman to It's About Time. Like his previous Animated features (both terrific) WAKING LIFE and A SCANNER DARKLY, Linklater uses a rotoscope technique, but, here, the look is more solid and hard-edged as opposed to the free-flowing wavy look of the earlier films. It fits the subject matter more, but, a little more softness would have helped.
In a way, this could be interpretated at as another in Linklater's semi-autobiographical series of films where APOLLO would be the earliest covering his elementary years, DAZED AND CONFUSED his High School ones, and EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! His College experience (his massive 12 year project BOYHOOD lords over it all). As genial and lovingly created as it is, APOLLO never fully forms. The narration sometimes feels like a grouping off all the opening credits introductions to an imaginary 'Stan In Grade School' TV sitcom. If one isn't of the Space Age generation, one can see how it wouldn't connect. One of the keys here is a line early on where Stan admits that he is a bit of a fabulist. It's not hard to imagine that there were a lot of "Stans" out there in 1969 who imagined themselves to be junior Neil Armstongs who got to vicariously travel to the moon themselves. It is this spirit which makes APOLLO 10 1/2 an enjoyable enough ride.
In truth, it's the film's subtitle: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD that truly describes the movie (also written by Linklater). Jack Black plays the adult Stan who narrates (and narrates and narrates) the entire picture. After a brief intro, the movie spends a full fifty minutes going through Stan's day to day life before getting back to his Apollo mission. And, once it gets there, it's relatively brief, with the focus quickly turning to his family's anticipation for the actual Apollo 11 moon landing with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins.
Linklater has always had a laid back vibe to his movies (his first movie was SLACKER, after all), and here he indulges himself in all things 60s with references to Ouija boards, push-button phones, Drive-Ins, Dark Shadows after-school TV showings and Tang. The soundtrack is dominated not only by hit singles of the era by the Monkeys, The Association, The Archies etc. -- but also surf music, deep tracks and other 60s ephemera. When Stan goes to the movies to see 2001, PLANET OF THE APES or THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Linklater's animators go all out in recreating the look and feel of celluloid through animation. A whole montage is devoted to just the TV shows of the era - everything from The Munsters to Batman to It's About Time. Like his previous Animated features (both terrific) WAKING LIFE and A SCANNER DARKLY, Linklater uses a rotoscope technique, but, here, the look is more solid and hard-edged as opposed to the free-flowing wavy look of the earlier films. It fits the subject matter more, but, a little more softness would have helped.
In a way, this could be interpretated at as another in Linklater's semi-autobiographical series of films where APOLLO would be the earliest covering his elementary years, DAZED AND CONFUSED his High School ones, and EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! His College experience (his massive 12 year project BOYHOOD lords over it all). As genial and lovingly created as it is, APOLLO never fully forms. The narration sometimes feels like a grouping off all the opening credits introductions to an imaginary 'Stan In Grade School' TV sitcom. If one isn't of the Space Age generation, one can see how it wouldn't connect. One of the keys here is a line early on where Stan admits that he is a bit of a fabulist. It's not hard to imagine that there were a lot of "Stans" out there in 1969 who imagined themselves to be junior Neil Armstongs who got to vicariously travel to the moon themselves. It is this spirit which makes APOLLO 10 1/2 an enjoyable enough ride.