

Mission To Mars (** out of ****)
Starring Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins
Directed By Brian DePalma
Buena Vista Pictures, Rated PG, 2000
Running Time: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

By Sean Molloy

[MEDIUM SPOILERS]

"I'm afraid there's a few things in his movie that couldn't quite
happen. Having people in space take their helmets off is wonderful
drama, but..."
- Buzz Aldrin, commenting on Brian DePalma's latest film Mission To Mars 

Before I begin, I have to admit that I went into Mission To Mars armed
with a fairly sharp bias.  I'm guilty of reading piles of internet
anti-hype and spiteful test-screening reviews.  I am not instilled
with confidence when I hear that instead of showing up to discuss his
film with students at a university's Director's Screening Night, Brian
DePalma sent along a piece of paper bearing the words "Hope you have
fun!"  I'm also guilty of hoping Mission To Mars would end up being
something it did not aim to be - an intelligent and original
science-fiction film.  Everything here has been done before - and done
far better - by films like 2001, Close Encounters, The Abyss and
Contact.  Call this course Intro To Science Fiction, and it's being
added to the curriculum about thirty years too late.

So, I didn't get what I wanted, it's not the first time... instead of
the memorable and thoughtful sci-fi epic I desired, or the flaming
heap of Armageddon-style dung I expected, Brian DePalma has delivered
a beautifully filmed and occasionally effective space melodrama.  The
astronauts on this Mission are the kind that watch videos of their
dead wives, and shed a tear as she stops to deliver a philosophical
soliloquy in the middle of a party.  They speak in exposition,
relaying in movie-science terms the concept of DNA to one another, as
if they think their counterparts didn't graduate from high school.
They clue fellow spacemen and spacewomen in on what exactly the
mission they've been on for thirteen months is.  They have their share
of improbable but undeniably suspenseful close calls and near misses.

Science and logic are freely traded for drama, usually to some degree
of success.  There's a effectively moving moment where a character
removes his helmet in the depths of space... what occurs then on the
screen is far removed from what would have actually happened to the
poor bastard.  Good thing, since the resulting blood-boiling,
explosive mess would probably have marred the dramatic occasion a tad.
I probably would have even shed a tear if the depth of character
development went beyond "is currently involved in a loving
relationship" or "was at one time involved in a loving relationship."

The upshot of this void of personality is that the script thankfully
manages to sidestep the tired introduction of the "crewmember gone
bad."  Not a one of them falls prey to the dreaded disorder of space
dimentia.  Could this be the first space movie to feature a crew that
actually gets along with one another?

The film's greatest strengths are visual ones... Mission To Mars
begins with what appears to be a long, continuous take, exploring a
group of people at a party.  He did the same exact thing at the
beginning of last year's atrocious Snake Eyes, only here, it seems as
if he's just trying to establish it as some sort of DePalma trademark,
because it's absolutely pointless.

The film's second major sequence, however, is an absolute
stunner... the unsuspecting crew of one of the Mars teams (led by Don
Cheadle) accidentally summons up the wrath of the planet itself - if
you've seen a preview for the film, you've probably seen the
snake-like dust funnel.  It's frightening, and it looks fantastic.
And as these events are transpiring on the planet, Mission Control is
monitoring them millions of miles away, twenty minutes after they
actually happen.  It's set up as a potentially nifty story-telling
device, but unfortunately nothing ever really comes of it.

The rest of the film follows the rescue crew as they try to get
themselves to Mars and rescue whoever may have survived... There's
some satisfyingly suspenseful moments as, inevitably, things don't go
quite as planned.  Most of the scenes in space are pretty impressive
technical feats.  DePalma's camera floats and rotates around the
spinning space station with disorienting dexterity, but too often it
looks like he's doing it just to show off.  And the sweeping rocky
vista of Red Planet itself looked, well, just like I'd expect Mars to
look.

As Fozzie Bear used to say, "Getting There Is Half The Fun."
Apparently, he's never been on a mission to Mars...  Alas, once our
intrepid crew arrives on the Red Planet, What They Find When They Get
There is insipid and boring.  Cover your ears if you don't care to
hear this, but I'm not really giving away more than what's in the
trailers... if you've seen a single commercial, I guarantee you
already know how the Mission ends.  I don't know, maybe I've just read
far too many science fiction novels in my time, but for my money,
human DNA is probably the least interesting item on the list of "cool,
exciting things you can find in space."  Mix in "lame computer
animation" and combine it with "overwrought emotional dreck," and now
you know what Mars' limp secret is.

I once played a game on my old Commodore 64 called Zak McKraken and
the Alien Mindbenders.  It was one of Lucasarts' first comic
point-and-click adventures, and it featured astronauts that were
headed off to explore that creepy face structure on Mars, much like
this daring crew.  What they uncovered was a sinister plot concocted
by a race of Alien Elvis Impersonators to make the people of Earth
terminally stupid.

Now that woulda been somethin'.

_____________
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