Hangar 18 (1980)

Great Film overall

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

A Schick Sunn films production, only this takes a different approach; rather than a docudrama style plot, this is more straightforward action thriller, starring Gary Collins and James Hampton as two returning astronauts forced to go on the run after the government decides to cover up a crashed UFO, and the astronauts find that they are expendable...If the story sounds familiar, it's because it was done already(except that was a hoaxed Mars landing) in "Capricorn One", a far superior film, with better writing and pacing, though director James L. Conway does what he can with the material.Darren McGavin plays their good friend at NASA who investigates the alien spacecraft, though is not involved in the murder plot, which is idiotic. Some camp value, but still silly.

In 1980 three astronauts in a space station attempt to launch a satellite from space itself. Wouldn't you know it crashes into a UFO and one of the astronauts is killed. And the UFO crashes into New Mexico famous of course as the home of crashed UFOs if you believe some folks. It's two weeks until the president of the USA is running for re-election and his chief of staff Robert Vaughn decides to stonewall the inquiries as to what is going on. And for reasons I'm still not figuring out he decides that the two surviving astronauts Gary Collins and James Hampton are to be left in the dark. Some speculative news reports convince Collins and Hampton that they're being set up as the fall guys for their colleague's death and whatever else comes out of this mess. They find out that the UFO is being kept on an abandoned Air Force base in Texas in Hangar 18.This film was put together with some NASA newsreel footage and some other military films and it looks and is cheap. The players do their best, but the incredulous story line just defeats them. I will say I liked the ending because it will leave you with all kinds speculative possibilities. My favorite is what would have happened had the UFO crashed in the then Soviet Union.

Kind of a high rating for a film that was kind of dull to me. The story is about an alien spaceship cover up featuring two guys out to clear their names even though no one really shows any anger towards them for the death and they end up endangering the lives of many and even offing a few people along the way. The best image in the whole movie comes near the beginning of the film when a satellite collides with an unidentified flying object and sends a man into space with his head traveling solo. There is one more interesting scene, that of a bunch of scientist going into a ship and looking around as it was fairly well done. The rest of the movie is just dull, the cover up gets to absurd, the aliens to human and the revelation at the end is not really anything to get to worked up over. It is a bit like Close Encounters if Steven Spielberg did not have a budget and had to make do with a very talkative script and tried to squeeze out an action scene or two that really was not justified in the film. It is kind of fun seeing some of the characters and going he is from this movie and he is from that though.

Well if your reading this your either bored, deciding on whether or not to watch it or just trying to get some perspective. So lemme' clear the air.First off, this is a sci-fi movie in the way the smith/goldbloom blockbuster "independance day" is. In other words its not a sci-fi movie but more of a fantasy action drama. You could even consider it a kind of cop chase movie crammed with ample techno-psycho babble. But I don't think those genres are quite fitting. I personally deem it a sorta pulpy/campy flick and possibly a soon to be cult classic. That said, don't compare it to "independence day". Think more along the lines of kubrik's "dr. strange love or how i..." Who will like this movie? Well studied and open minded ufo nerds, people who laugh at things that ain't meant to be funny, film students and of course stoners. Who will hate it? People who read the book first, people who like any vin deisel movie or magnolia, film critics and of course stoners. Whats the straight dope? Its very well shot, but its pock marked with terrible and often confusing dialog. It has constant trouble pacing the scenes but the action bits seem way too cool. As a pluss the actors give a serious tour deforce and make sure to keep an eye out for Charlton Heston. By far, the most grooved out aspect is wondering how much of todays media was inspired by this movie.The best- an astronaut spontaneously stealing a car. The worst- the first 10 minutes. The line to know- "Airplanes crash every day."