Subject: Review: Mission To Mars (2000)

From: Michael Redman <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Jun 2000 15:56:57 GMT

Maybe this mission should have been scrubbed

Mission To Mars
*1/2  (out of ****)

A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 2000 by Michael Redman

There's a world of difference between artists and technicians. The
artist has a vision to create something new. He may not do it well, it
might be sloppy, but it's something you've never seen before. A good
technician can make it look good, but without direction from his own
inner artist or someone else, it's going to be just a Xerox. Obviously
successful films need both skills.

Brian De Palma is a masterful technician. He's spent his career copying
others, most notably Hitchcock. He usually knows exactly what to do to
make a scene work, but only because he has learned it by rote. Aside
from rare flashes of originality, his films are often soul-dead.

In De Palma's latest, he turns his attention to Stanley Kubrick. To tell
the truth, I enjoyed portions of this movie, but I liked it a lot better
over 30 years ago when it was called "2001". I enjoyed it even more when
it was titled "Close Encounters".

NASA has set its sights for Mars. When the first crew meets with
disaster, a rescue mission is sent to the red planet. They don't do so
well either, but eventually meet up the lone surviving
astronaut-gone-Rasta and solve the mysteries of the universe. And it's
all so boring.

There are so many scenes that just don't work, it's difficult to begin.
When the first crew is a few feet away from a raging massive upside-down
Martian tornado (which looks remarkably like a sandworm from "Dune")
destroying everything in its path, they just hang out watching. Error.
The most interesting character (and that's not saying much) is killed
off. Error. The alien is laughable. Error. The rest of the characters
are the dullest people imaginable. Error.

There's some nice eyecandy. The face on Mars, which turns out to be a
giant metal Thai Buddha head, looks cool. A three-dimensional
holographic planetarium is more fun to watch than anything at Disney
World. Maneuvering in space suits outside the ship seems realistic.

But there's so much more that feels as if we've been there before. From
"2001", there's the rotating space station, the blinding white room.
>From "Close Encounters", they solve a sound puzzle and play it to the
aliens. The list goes on.

The actors are mostly mobile wooden statues. Even Gary Sinise and Tim
Robbins can't muster enough emotion to convince us they are breathing.
No one seems to care about anything that happens. You won't either.

The absolutely worst sin is the blatant product placement as Dr. Pepper,
with a 20 foot tall logo, saves the day. They should save the
commercials for those insipid bits before the film.

(Michael Redman has written this column since before Mars was discovered
and if that planet is as exciting as this film, he thinks he'll just
stay home. Email your Martian chronicles to [email-masked].)

[This appeared in the 3/16/2000 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington,
Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at [email-masked].]

-- 
mailto:[email-masked]
Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman