Subject: Review: Mission to Mars (2000)

From: "Walter Frith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 2 Apr 2000 19:52:27 GMT

'Mission to Mars' (2000)

A movie review by Walter Frith

[email-masked]

Member of the 'Online Film Critics Society'
http://www.ofcs.org

Cast - Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O' Connell and Tim
Robbins.
Directed by - Brian De Palma
Written by - Lowell Cannon, Jim Thomas, John Thomas, Graham Yost
Produced by - Tom Jacobson
(Rating) > Motion Picture Association of America - PG (Parental Guidance) /
Rated PG for sci-fi violence and mild language.
(Rating) > Ontario Film Review Board - PG (Parental Guidance) / Rated PG.
May offend some.  Frightening scenes.
Running Length - 110 minutes.
Distributor - Touchstone Pictures.

Brian De Palma.  A man I have trouble accepting as a film director.  Michael
Cimino wins the Oscar for directing 'The Deer Hunter' in 1978 and then flops
big time with 'Heaven's Gate', takes time off to recover and then is given
the opportunity to direct 1985's 'Year of the Dragon' and then he is all but
forgotten with the exception of only a few minor films since then.  De Palma
gets huge budgets for his films and flops at almost every single one of
them.  HOW DOES THIS MAN CONTINUE TO WORK IN HOLLYWOOD?
This can only be truly understood by the film buff who shakes his or her
head in
disbelief whenever a Brian De Palma film comes out.  De Palma just doesn't
understand sub text.  His films all have long static tracking shots of no
interest and
his films move along usually at the pace of being stuck in a traffic jam.
'Mission to Mars' has all of the ingredients of a Brian De Palma film
without the usual trait of trying to copy Alfred Hitchcock.

It is 2020 and people are still the same.  They live in houses, have kids,
barbecues, drink beer and appreciate their friendships.  Jim McConnell (Gary
Sinise) is a man still suffering the loss of his spouse.  Luke Graham (Don
Cheadle) is the captain of the first human exploration to the red planet,
Mars.  Jim and Luke take Woody Blake and Terry Fisher (Tim Robbins and
Connie Nielsen) and Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O'Connell) and a couple of other
astronauts with them.  The space frontier holds many mysteries and NASA has
lost probes near Mars before so who knows if an exploration of Mars should
ever be attempted.  Some believe that a cosmic whirlwind or some other
scientific force caused particles from Mars to drift to Earth and that our
ancestry and entire life force is indeed Martian in nature and this is what
'Mission to Mars' tries to explain with an "in your FACE" style of
presentation.  You'll know what I mean by the quotation marks and capital
letters after you've seen the film.

Luke and some others explore Mars and all are killed except for Luke and a
rescue mission begins to find them.  This is the first major problem the
film has and it's a problem I had with Oliver Stone's 'Born on the Fourth of
July' in 1989.  We go from one normal scene to a completely different one
without any transition in viewing it.  In the case of Stone's film, it
showed Tom Cruise from his rainy prom night to his immediate tour of duty in
Vietnam.  'Mission to Mars' goes from Earth quickly to the mission without
showing us anything about the departure from our world.  A film needs a send
off like the launching of Apollo 13 in the film of the same name from 1995.
1997's 'Contact' had the major blast off shown in quite a different way but
at least it was there.  You simply can't get an audience fully interested in
your main frame of story telling if you don't show them how they get there
in order to know where they're going next.

There is one totally tedious part of 'Mission to Mars' where a space walk
takes place in order to retrieve a craft and one of the rescue crew dies and
it is one of the most boring things you will ever see on film.  In 1984's
'2010', we see two astronauts about to board the Discovery.  One is American
and one is Russian.  The space walk is quick, timed perfectly with
reflective dialogue of their situation along the way.  There are no long
shots that go on and on and on.  De Palma had me looking at my watch several
times during this scene and during the film in general.

The performances in this film are nothing to rave about either.  They are
standard, lack depth and have only a flurry of interest towards the end of
the film.  The film also has a problem with theories and proof of
geographical origins such as the notion of continental drift.  Many of the
insights the film projects about the world we know of make us say, "Okay,
I've known or suspected that for sometime.  Why can't this movie create a
situation or theory I can think about long after I leave the theatre."
Isn't that the point of most good science fiction?

About the only thing I liked in 'Mission to Mars' were the visuals and the
fact that the film did run under two hours, thank God.  It really looked and
felt like Mars and being partial to a good soundtrack, the film had many
sound effects that provided much needed ear candy and the eye candy helped
out a great deal.  The film sort of feels like ordering from a menu in a
restaurant and upon finding out that they don't have your meal on the menu,
you settle for second best and comment that although you didn't get what you
wanted, it was still pretty good.  De Palma does deserve some credit for
this film which is better in its second half but it still is a far cry from
good science fiction, which playing second fiddle to comedy, is the hardest
thing to pull off successfully in motion pictures.  Let's hope that De Palma
doesn't try to be (intentionally) funny anytime soon.

OUT OF 4 > * * 1/2

A film must receive a three star rating or higher to be eligible for a
recommendation.

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