Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon (2005)
Herzog-Cowen Entertainment

Description

Only 12 have walked on the moon. You're next! Presented and narrated by Tom Hanks, Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon is an IMAX documentary film that transports the viewer to lunar surface, where they can walk alongside the 12 extraordinary astronauts who have been there, experiencing what they saw, heard, and felt.

Tags

Moon, IMAX, Astronauts

Editorial review

7.0 Documentary-Review.com | Larry H.

Space enthusiast Tom Hanks has produced this IMAX movie, reaching out to a broader (and younger) audience than the movie Apollo 13 and miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. With this in mind Magnificent Desolation may serve it's purpose well. It's stated goal of making you experience what it's like to walk on the Moon may work on a big IMAX screen, but not in your home theater. The CGI recreations of the astronauts walking on the moon are still impressive and so is the list of Hollywood actors reading actual quotes from the men who went there.

Collected reviews and ratings

8.0 Washington Post | Desson Thomson

... a gee-wonderful virtual visit to the arid orb, which uses ingenious technical sleight of hand to - let's face it - fake it beautifully.
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8.0 Los Angeles Times | Kevin Crust

... it's the film's visuals that provide its biggest thrills as director Cowen places the audience squarely in the boots of Apollo astronauts as they walk the moon's pockmarked surface. The Imax 3-D format mimics the near weightlessness as the space travelers glide from point to point marveling at the vastness of the Sea of Tranquillity.
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8.0 Amazon user reviews

The recreation of Apollo 15 landing on and exploring the Plains of Hadley Rille is worth the cost of this DVD alone.
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7.5 Entertainment Weekly | Scott Brown

Perhaps if Desolation hadn't skimped on the science in its race to grab kids' eyeballs, it might've grabbed a couple of future astronauts by the brain.
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7.0 DVD Verdict | Ben Saylor

I'm sure Magnificent Desolation plays well with children, and it was clearly made with good intentions, but at the end of the day, it is still a wildly uneven exercise from talents who could have done better. Guilty of failing to live up to expectations.
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7.0 filmcritic.com | Norm Schrager

Magnificent Desolation is another Hanks love letter to the country's lunar program, and his earnestness makes for compelling content about American moon voyages and the details within. But the real awe comes from the film's incredible 3D, giant screen versions of moonwalks, as guided by director Mark Cowen.
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6.0 New York Times | Anita Gates

The illusion is impressive but incomplete, and therefore mildly disappointing. But I cannot deny having felt a little nervous when "we" (the astronaut on screen and I) were standing too close to the edge at the Grand Canyon-like Hadley Rille. So clearly I'm a liar.
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6.0 Variety | Joe Leydon

... an earnest but insubstantial Imax 3-D spectacle that, even at 40 minutes, seems unduly padded. Obviously aimed at schoolchildren likely to be bused in for matinee screenings, docu offers grown-ups very little that is fresh or insightful, and too much that is facile or hokey.
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5.0 DVD Talk | Francis Rizzo III

The big issue here is the length, and the fact that you don't have an IMAX theater in your house. If we could solve those problems, this would be a pretty awesome experience (and make sure to invite me over.)
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