OK, exactly what is it about the whole "Let's go to Mars" premise that filmmakers don't understand? Surely the concept of landing humans on the surface of this angriest of planets could make up at least one entertaining movie. Unfortunately, those of us who were annoyed by Mission to Mars will most likely be equally disappointed in Red Planet. That's two Mars movies this year, and if you made ONE movie out of the best components of each, you'd still have a piece of junk. Note to directors of science fiction movies - Special Effects will never truly mask a lack of effort, no matter hard you try.
I mean really - How HARD is it to make an exciting Space Movie? Red Planet seems to start out on the right foot. The characters are cardboard cutouts, but there are a few scenes in which we see a little depth. Up until the obligatory shower scene, of course. Carrie Anne-Moss (The Matrix) plays the captain of an all-male crew, so just when you expect this movie to make a quiet point about the strength of women, Carrie's stripped naked and shoved into a shower scene.
The rest of the crew are as dull as they are familiar; the science officer (Tom Sizemore), the deep-thinking philosopher (Terence Stamp), the surly machines expert (Val Kilmer), the tough-talking Lieutenant (Benjamin Bratt) and the coward (Simon Baker). My description of these characters is more fleshed out than they are onscreen. So this cranky crew sets off for Mars to check out why the Oxygen Generators aren't working. Suffice to say that things go amiss.
About 20 minutes into the movie, there is an admittedly entertaining sequence in which the crew has to make a quick escape from their ship. The lovely captain must stay behind to navigate the ship, and the five he-men are shot onto the Mars surface. This is precisely the point in which Red Planet flounders, and the movie never comes close to recovering. That's because this crew has a robot. This sleek, fancy robot is meant to be a navigating device, but it somehow got its button stuck on "Military Mode" so now it's hunting down the explorers.
Yeah, yeah. I know...another robot run amok movie. Stinks, don't it? Would it be so impossible for there to be a few evil, homicidal Martians or even some giant space creatures in one of these Mars movies? Why are both Red Planet and Mission to Mars so reluctant to show us anything scary or exciting? In this movie, the only living creatures on Mars are these little beetles and a bunch of algae. As a matter of fact, if you drank a beer for every time you heard the word "algae" mentioned, you'd end up as drunk as Val Kilmer obviously is.
This movie plays exactly like any 'Mars' movie from the 1940's, with the fancy-schmancy special effects being the only notable improvement. But since most of those old sci-fi movies were written on a 2nd-grade level, please don't consider my comments as complimentary. When the crew needs a radio, they discover an old "American Space Module" to disassemble. When the crew needs to find a way off the planet, they quickly discover an old "Russian Space Probe" a few miles away. You see what I'm saying? The script is l..a..z..y!
The main problem lies within the aimless screenplay. Characters are simply dropped (in one case, literally) out of the story. Particularly silly is the fate of Terence Stamp's character, who opts for the old "Oh, I'm not gonna make it...You guys go on without me" speech. While this scene could be a touching moment in some movies, in this case you're just left thinking "Yeah, so? Wait, which guy was that again?" Also consider the creativity needed to have a major character die by simply falling off a cliff after a scuffle. So exactly WHY was this guy even IN the movie?"
Red Planet is basically an adventure movie with no real hero. Our star, Val Kilmer, plays a guy who is completely devoid of personality and when he DOES show some emotion towards the finale, he starts to whimper and cry about just wanting to die? Heck, I know my way around these lazy sci-fi movies, and no self-respecting Hero would ever behave like this. Perhaps the lovely and talented Captain is the hero...only she's stuck out in space on her deserted spaceship wearing tight white T-shirts. It's tough to get behind a female hero when she's so obviously being framed in a "boob-shot".
Also quite annoying is the ever-present product placement. Some lazy schmo over at the studio thought it would be clever to just put ads for Nokia and Toshiba all over the actor's wardrobes! Yep, throughout the whole movie, you can clearly see them. Just another sign of respect from Hollywood. Red Planet also features the rarely-used cinematic trick of false flashbacks, scenes that happened earlier in the movie, but were never SHOWN to us! Someone needs to go back to the editing room here.
Special Effects + Interesting Script = Good Movie
Special Effects + Actors Wandering Around Spouting Inane Babble = Bad Movie
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