Earlier this year, I had the distinct misfortune to see "Mission to Mars". When the second movie about a trip to Mars, “Red Planet” came to my local theater, I thought to myself: It's gotta be better than "Mission".
My friend Donald, a fellow sf fan, and I went to the matinee at our local theater this past saturday to see "Red Planet". We basically had the theater all to ourselves, probably because the other film playing was "the Grinch" and everyone was taking their kids to see it. This worked out really well because Don's in a wheelchair since an auto accident two years ago and he didn't have to worry about someone tripping over or running into his chair in the dark.
The film started and as is usual we get a bunch of scenes introducing us to the characters. Most of which aren't the least bit interesting or appealing. In fact only two of them have any real "character" at all. Carrie Anne Moss in a role somewhat reminiscent of "Ripley" from the Alien films does a very credible job. (I suppose all strong female characters in SF films eventually get compared to Ripley.) Unfortunately she's stuck on the ship for the entire film while the Yancy Street boys club explores the surface. Maybe that's a good thing though because what happens aboard this ship is more interesting than what happens on the planet.
The other interesting character was Chantillas, the philosopher. Played by Terrence Stamp (and eerily reminiscent of Sean Connery), Chantillas is unique among these astronauts, he has an actual personality and not a stereotype. Wouldn’t you know it though, he’s the first to die down on the planet. The next to go is the hotshot pilot (played by Julia Robert’s current paramour, Benjamin Bratt). No great loss to the film here. That leaves three including big star Val Kilmer (you know he’s going to survive because he is… well… the star. Duh!)
Also along for the ride is a robot on loan from the marines called AMEE. AMEE crashes on the planet and gets her circuits scrambled so that she begins to stalk our boys. When she first comes across the boys she could kill them all easily and be done with it. Instead she wounds one and takes off so that she can play a cat and mouse game with them. This makes absolutely no sense! As a military robot, she should be programmed to “get in and get out”, not play stupid games. This then is the jist of the rest of the film, they try to get to an old Russian ship that never fired when it was supposed to and was abandoned there. This ship is supposed to get them into orbit where Carrie Anne Moss can pick them up and they can return to Earth. All this while avoiding the marauding AMEE. There’s some buglike creatures thrown into the mix for good measure. This plot has more holes than Charlie Brown’s Halloween costume. And like Charlie who when everyone else got cool candy in their trick or treat bag, speaks up and says: “I got a rock”, and when everyone else went to “the Grinch” and we ended up with Red Planet, we said in unison: “I got a rock”.
So was it better than “Mission to Mars"?
Yes, (I know that isn’t saying a whole lot) but not by much.
As a postscript to this review, let me say that when we saw this movie, the film broke halfway through and we had to return on Monday to finish watching it. At the time, we thought the first set up the second half fairly well, little did we know that the second half didn’t even come close to delivering.
A better film would have been the astronauts and AMEE battling it out with the bugs. Now that would’ve been cool!
In the near future, Earth is dying. A new colony on Mars could be humanity's only hope. A team of American astronauts, each a specialist in a differen...More at HotMovieSale.com
Product DetailsOriginal Title:Red PlanetActors: Benjamin Bratt - Terence Stamp - Tom Sizemore - Val KilmerCondition: NEWFormat: DVDDirector: Anthony ...More at iNetVideo.com
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