Apollo 18

This is another one of those “found footage” movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. It alleges that while Apollo 17 was the last known American mission to the moon, there was another top-secret mission that ended badly for its astronauts. After the discovery that other Earthlings made it to the moon without telling, strange things start happening involving moon rocks with attitude. Obviously made for very little money, the film has a few good jolts, and the actors give it their all. For the most part, it’s a tedious exercise in not showing the monster because you can’t afford a good one. Director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego does a halfway decent job making the fake footage look like old NASA film footage, and that’s about the best thing I can say about his work. The movie has a promising premise, and little more. Just the kind of half-baked flick we can expect to see toward the end of summer.