For the purposes of this review, I will ignore the pop songs on the score and stick to the original score only.
James Horner had an excellent year in 1995, the highlight of which were his big three scores Casper, Braveheart and Apollo 13. Although I like Casper very much, probably due to its immense amount of fun, it is Apollo 13 that I would have picked as his best "mature" score for 1995. It is a fairly subtle and understated score most of the time and has an almost religious quality about it, especially the horn and choir parts. The dialogue on parts of the tracks is a bit irritating, but that's why we have programmable CD players! There are two main themes, one is used mostly during the launch and one is used mostly in the return of the module to Earth. Both are related in style, but different enough to tell apart. The power of the launch music is slightly lost on CD without the visuals as the way it fits in with what is going on is superb. The action cue that immediately follows the explosion has pianos rumbling around in the bass propelling the music and the on screen action tumbling off into space. The Dark Side of the Moon uses the talents of Annie Lennox to add a soothing vocal which is mysterious and beautiful. The best comes last though, when the module finally returns to Earth, the tension builds as the crew go out of radio contact but then returns with the second theme as they appear in the sky. The music is patriotic, but not too much so and certainly nowhere near as over the top as say Independence Day. There was rather a fiasco with different version being released, but I have the standard version with the correct track listings and although I would have liked the promotional version, I can still thoroughly recommend this as a perfect example of a James Horner score.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 72:11