

MISSION TO MARS
(Touchstone)
Starring:  Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry
O'Connell.
Screenplay:  Jim Thomas & John Thomas and Graham Yost.
Producer:  Tom Jacobson.
Director:  Brian DePalma.
MPAA Rating:  PG (profanity, violence, adult themes)
Running Time:  113 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

     A few months ago, I was at a press screening for another Touchstone
film which was preceded by a teaser trailer for MISSION TO MARS. As the
trailer unfolded, the critics in the audience began to snicker with
increasing frequency. The imagery used was startling similar to images
from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY -- an astronaut in a white room, an approach to
a dark object in the distance, a figure spinning off into space.

     It was comical not just because of the familiarity, but because it
seemed so quintessentially Brian De Palma. This was, after all, the
director who had built a 25 year career on cribbing from his most talented
predecessors. The train station sequence in THE UNTOUCHABLES came from
Eisenstein's POTEMKIN; the single-take opening sequence in SNAKE EYES felt
like Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL; whole heaping chunks of his early films
appropriated Hitchcockian devices and themes. So why wouldn't De Palma
take on the most iconic science-fiction film ever made while making his
first science-fiction film? Why not add Kubrick to his list of victims of
auteur homage?

     To be fair, MISSION TO MARS the film is not nearly as similar to 2001
as the trailers might lead you to fear. It's more alarming that it's
similar to the cookie-cutter Hollywood approach to any story. The film
focuses primarily on the aftermath of the first manned mission to Mars in
the year 2020. After an unexplainable phenomenon kills the rest of his
crew, Mission Commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) sends a cryptic message
back to mission control. That message sets in motion a recovery mission
led by Commander Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) and pilot Jim McConnell (Gary
Sinise), both close friends of Graham. The recovery team members face
their own perils on the way to the Red Planet, risking their lives to
discover its mysterious secret.

     The frustrating thing about any Brian De Palma film is that you can
always count on at least one extended sequence where you realize what a
brilliant technical craftsman he can be. That sequence in MISSION TO MARS
comes about halfway through the film, a 20-minute stretch following an
accident in which the recovery craft starts losing atmosphere. A chain
reaction of events following that accident keeps building tension, leading
to some genuinely tense moments. De Palma's sense for timing this sort of
sequence is impeccable -- recall the editing of Tom Cruise's computer room
break-in in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- leading to the hope that MISSION TO
MARS can maintain that sort of visual and emotional energy.

     And then you remember this is Brian De Palma. Every once in a while,
by sheer twisted accident, De Palma ends up working with a rich, smart
script -- THE UNTOUCHABLES, BLOW OUT, CARLITO'S WAY. More often, you get
the impression that he looks for a script with a few places he can show
off his visual flair. MISSION TO MARS has its showcase sequence, but it
also has a leaden script full of plug-and-play characterizations. Sinise's
McConnell is portrayed as haunted by the death from cancer of his beloved
wife/fellow astronaut ("NYPD Blue's" Kim Delaney in flashback); Cheadle
gets a sensitive moment with his anxious son on the night before his
departure. It's the sort of mawkish back-story screenwriters use all the
time in adventure films, in a token -- and usually futile -- attempt to
show that the people matter more than the concept.

     Ironically, MISSION TO MARS is that rare case where the concept does
matter more than the people. Kubrick understood that 2001 was about the
mysteries of the universe and the flight of the entire human race, not
just whether Dave Bowman was torn up over his personal tragedies. When
MISSION TO MARS gets metaphysical, it makes sure there's someone on hand
to narrate every brutally obvious revelation, and someone whose individual
journey to wholeness will be completed by this close encounter. This film
doesn't end with the awe of creation; it ends with tedious exposition
topped off by an interplanetary clasping of hands. There are flashes of
Brian De Palma the visceral thrill-master in MISSION TO MARS, but he
doesn't seem to know what to do with its limp conclusion. This time
around, he opts not to rip-off a master. This time around, it probably
would have been a good idea.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 space idiocies:  5.

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