Subject: Review: Mission to Mars (2000)

From: "Rose 'Bams' Cooper" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Mar 2000 03:33:08 GMT

'3 Black Chicks Review...'

Mission To Mars (2000) 
Rated PG; running time 113 minutes
Genre: Science Fiction
IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0183523 
Official site: http://movies.go.com/m2m/  
Written by: Jim Thomas (based on a story by Lowell Cannon)
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins, 
Jerry O'Connell, Kim Delaney

Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000
Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamsmission.html

It was an odd coincidence that the first trailers for "Mission To Mars" 
came out right around the time when NASA's Mars Lunar module got lost in 
space.  It was almost a joke (although at $165 million, not a very funny 
joke) at the time, that "Mission" had as much a chance to succeed as 
that failed space mission did.  And though it took first place in its 
first weekend, a lot of reviewers said that, as a movie, it was a 
critical failure.  What does Yours Truly say?  Well, I reckon you'll 
have to read on to find out.

The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**):
Beginning in the year 2020, Mission Commander Luke Goddard (Don Cheadle) 
prepares, with the support of friends and fellow astronauts Woody Blake 
(Tim Robbins), Woody's wife, Dr. Terri Fisher (Connie Nielsen), 
scientist Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O'Connell) and "stick jockey" Jim 
McConnell (Gary Sinise), for an historic mission: the first manned 
mission from Earth to Mars.  But when a "mysterious force" causes a 
disaster on Mars, stranding Luke and possibly his team, his support team 
sets off from Earth on a rescue mission that puts them in as much risk 
as those they're attempting to bring back.

The Upshot:
Two things I noticed right off the bat in "Mission": 

-Except for two specific pieces of music (the opening Zydeco piece, and 
the Van Halen "dance" number), the background music was truly awful.  
Whoever came up with the bright idea to have Cheesy Organ Music 
throbbing in the background, should be taken out behind the woodshed and 
severely scolded - just before they're dropkicked right out of the movie 
business.  

-If this movie is any indication, future space missions will be 
commercial-laden: "product placement" takes on a whole new meaning when 
your brand name is written in great big letters along the side of a 
rocketship.

Ok, actually, make that three things I noticed right off: the third 
being the genuine "closeness" I perceived between the characters.  I 
know I said pretty much the same thing in my "What Planet Are You From?" 
review, but the feeling of real camaraderie struck me even harder here.  
Struck me so hard, in fact, it moved me to tears at one point (you'll 
know the point when you see the movie).  

There have been real-world scientists, along with not a few laymen and 
movie critics, who've taken "Mission" to task for where it went wrong; 
but there have been just as many who've praised it for where the movie 
got the science, and the story, right.  I fall squarely in the latter 
camp.  I don't know from physics, or whether an orbit around Mars should 
be asynchronous or bsynchronous; but I do know a well-told, heartfelt 
story when I see one, and that's what I saw during the 113 minutes of 
"Mission".  True, it had its flaws; it often got thick on the melodrama, 
and Kim Delaney (playing Jim's dead wife Maggie, via home movies) proved 
herself once again to be a fifth wheel in the presence of much greater 
actors.  And did I mention that godawful music?

But I easily looked past its flaws and saw the essential human story it 
told.  I found the tight-knit group of characters entirely believable, 
got a warm 'n fuzzy feeling from watching their interactions, and was 
simply blinded - in a good way - by the science of it all.  The special 
effects were brilliant, but not so-much-so that they overwhelmed the 
story itself.  And I still can't speak of the spacewalk scene without 
feeling a lump in my throat.

After his terrible miscalculation in "Reindeer Games", I was heartened 
to see Sinise bounce back so strongly here.  Cheadle's performance was 
likewise strong [and you know I gotta feature him in the "Black Factor" 
below], O'Connell was humorous but not stupidly so, and though Nielsen 
suffered by comparison in her "alone" scenes, her chemistry with Robbins 
was right on the money; they made a great couple, and I'd love to see 
them act in something together again. 

Will we Earthers really reach Mars by 2020?  Well, we missed the "Space 
1999" deadline already, and a lot of "futuristic" movies and TV series 
of the past will soon be shown to have been a little more optimistic of 
the advancement of the human race than we've proven ourselves to be 
capable of thus far.  But the question for me is not so much "Will we 
get out there?", or even "Who else will we find when we do?" - but 
instead, "What will we do about each other *here*?"

The "Black Factor"  [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith]:
"Mission Commander Luke Goddard, played by Don Cheadle".  Man, do I love 
typing that.  A powerful actor whose "quietness" almost - but not quite 
- masks his incredible acting abilities (c.f. "Devil In A Blue Dress"), 
he succeeded where Angela Bassett failed in the dreadful "Supernova" 
earlier this year: neither making his "Blackness" pronounced, nor 
putting it away in shame, Cheadle, through Luke, built on the legacy of 
a very few Black actors who've slowly chipped away at that old 
stereotype (began with "Logan's Run", I believe; correct me if I'm 
wrong) that the Black "race" won't survive in any meaningful way, into 
the future.  Cheadle joins a chosen few in making space, on the Silver 
Screen, "safe" for Black Folk again.

Bammer's Bottom Line:
While no "The Right Stuff", "Mission" had its heart in the right place.  
And the way I see it, "heart" is what propelled it well out of the 
lesser orbit of that other dramatic space flick of 2000...uh, y'all know 
the one I mean.  I just can't bring myself to type the name of that most 
dreadful collection of frames of moving images running swiftly together 
which would normally be called "film" but could not by any stretch of 
the imagination be honoured with such a label, so soon after I've eaten.

"Mission To Mars" (rating: greenlight): 
This flick did what even the noteworthy "The Green Mile" couldn't do: it 
made me cry.  And for all its flaws, that goes a long way towards 
proving its worth, in my book.

3 Black Chicks...Movie Reviews With Flava!            /~\
Rose "Bams" Cooper                                   /','\
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