Subject: Review: Mission To Mars (2000)

From: "Alex Ioshpe" <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Apr 2000 17:26:09 GMT

"Houston. We have a serious problem."

RATING: 2/10

After making "Mission: Impossible", Brian De Palma has a lot to live up to.
By making an epic science fiction and inviting great cast and talented crew,
he hopes to reach the modern audience. And the possibilities are certainly
there, but the result is a great disaster.

Starting in a near future, with a prologue copied from "Apollo 13", De Palma
slowly builds up his "story". The human race has already set foot on Mars. A
research expedition has vanished without trace on the red planet and another
one has been sent to find out what happened. This is basically the whole
plot. So it's hard to imagine that it can be stretched to 2 hours. But De
Palma manages to do that. It is not a very good achievement. As we follow
this expedition to Mars and watch them slowly float in space, the hardest
thing to do is stay awake. The film's major problem is that it tries to seem
more clever than it is. David Mamet's dialogue, while trying to seem
natural, is distant and simply fake. De Palma and Mamet wanted to combine
action with a thought provoking plot. The result is more like an
unsuccessful mutation of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Apollo 13" and
"Godzilla". To make time pass , the creators have inserted several
"refreshing" scientific details, that would not convince a half-crazed frog.
It consists of multiple copies and direct ripp-offs from several great
science fiction films and stories. When it finally presents an almost
original idea, it falls flat because of its uncovered stupidity. I can't
even call this film predictable, since no one with a healthy imagination can
come up with something like this. Sometimes it gets so cheesy, that you'll
start laughing when you're supposed to cry and cry when you're supposed to
laugh. You'll see enormous sandstorms, hear mysterious sounds and, last but
not least, on this "constantly surprising" tour you'll see -- an alien. It's
really hard to find comparisons to such an experience, and I know that I've
never said that before (I thought I never would), but "Lost in Space" is
actually better. That's an achievement in itself!

Director Brian De Palma has stroke gold with "Untouchables" that became an
instant American classic. It is for this film that he will be remembered,
while all his other failures will be forgotten. He'll live to fight another
day! I send the actors my condolences, since they truly do try to transform
into their undeveloped  and dull characters. And both the cinematography,
production design and art direction are very decent. It is because of the
achievement of 254 people, that I rate this film 2/10. Unfortunately their
hard work was in vain. If you have problems with insomnia, I recommend you
this film. If you're not asleep within the first half hour, consult your
doctor.