Red Planet

source: Red Planet

Moviecut—Red Planet

Red Planet

I have tangled with over a dozen people who said this movie was trash.. and each and every one of the viewers 1. Didn't see the movie. 2. Confused it with Tim Robbins' AWFUL Mission to Mars. BOTH MOVIES CAME OUT AT THE SAME TIME.. THE SAME YEAR.. so please get them straight. This movie is fabulous with the zero-G fire aboard the ship and the chilling suffocation struggle which Sizemore brought to new levels of frail humanity. They choke to near death only to learn that Mars has an atmosphere. This isn't the only discovery they make on this creative masterpiece, it seems you can learn a little bit about science by watching this film. Wow! And you thought that this was a no-brainer.uh uh.. Sizemore goes out with a blaze of glory in one of the most eerie suicides i've ever seen on screen. So if you think you've seen this movie.. double check it.

I've had a real dilemma since seeing Red Planet. For this year, which was the worse movie, Red Planet or Mission to Mars? It's a tough call. I gave both a 2, feeling the sometimes fun special effects saved each from being "Plan 9" level. But, these are both truly awful science-fiction films. What is so amazing is how both turned out to be just about the same film. Both are based on the "big accident when we get there" plot line. At least Red Planet avoided the "Faces on Mars" nonsense of Mission to Mars. But, the idea that we can have massive terraforming efforts going on on Mars including a built habitat without noticing lots of life forms, dramatically increased oxygen levels, and everything else this movie just pops out of the woodwork is so moronic as to be just about "Plan 9" level. As if that wasn't enough, we throw in the "killer robot"/"military hardware run amok" standard plot line #17 just for good measure. I have long wondered at the workings of Hollywood. Two completely separate groups both decided to make a bad Mars movie in the same year? How does that happen?

I'm an avid science-fiction fan and I enjoy movies about space travel, especially if it's about traveling to the Mars. This movie is so unwatchable that I barely cared about what was happening to the characters.The movie is not engaging at all and the characters are all unlikable,even the actress that played Trinity in the Matrix looks completely bland in this horrible movie. The sets are all poorly made and even by the standards of 15 years ago, the special effects are disastrous;considering there were fantastic movies like the Matrix and the Terminator 2 around at the time. I'm sure my judgment has not been influenced by all the successful science fiction movies I've seen during all these years. I even enjoyed Mission to Mars. At least that movie was emotionally engaging, but this one is just horrible. By the end of the movie, my nephew and I were laughing out loud at how horrible the movie was and we both thought its only redeeming quality was the girl's space suit near the end of the movie, which was much more attractive than the ugly suits the characters had on all the time. This movie is not even eye-candy. It is just terrible. Do not even get me started on how unrealistic and unscientific it was. Avoid this movie like the plague.

Mars Attacks was WAY better than this. Depressingly bad, unimaginative, sneering lip-service paid to long-established and well-milked sci-fi tropes to make a quick buck off the Red Wave of the time. "How do people get away with this sort of thing?", I wonder to myself sometimes as the long winter nights draw in and I'm feeling my age. I just couldn't rid myself of the feeling that the actors felt they were in another stupid kiddie-brained science fiction movie that was only going to be watched by geeks. When the astronaut complained about algebra me and my flatmate just looked at each other and groaned. "You're an astronaut!" he said to the screen, "You're GOOD at algebra!" "I hate this planet," says one of the 'nauts near the end as the... scary...killer...robot... zzzzz approaches for yet another action sequence. No. It's the movie he hates, and who can blame him? Badly shot, badly written, badly directed, just plain bad through and through. 1 obligatory star. A Pile of Space Poo. And exploitative to boot. Boo! Hiss!

This movie was released the same year as "Mission To Mars" and both movies had an interesting twist to them. While "Mission To Mars" dealt humans "visiting" the planet and dealing with the "face on Mars" and a previous civilization living on that planet at one time, "Red Planet" dealt with humans trying to "colonize" the planet but running into a problem they didn't count --- life still being there. I would suggest viewing both movies as companions to each other.

I avoided most of the Mars movies when they came out in the past 4 years because the reviews were mostly bad and none of the trailers inspired me. I eventually caught MISSION TO MARS on TV and I was glad I didn't see it at the movies or even rented it. But now I rented RED PLANET last night and I have to say that I liked it a lot. It's much better than the hokey De Palma movie. There are a lot of weaknesses in it but even with all it's faults, the whole package worked. The problems with RED PLANET: Val Kilmer is miscast. He doesn't seem interested in the story and his acting is lazy. He looks like a lost surfer dude on Mars. They should have hired another actor instead of Kilmer. Some characters were weak (Stamp and Bratt). The designs of the ship's interior were a tad cheesy. The dialogue was sometimes terrible. And the story had some major holes in it, like the idea that the ship's censors didn't detect the breathable atmosphere on Mars. But aside from those problems, the rest is fun. It's a straight forward science fiction story. If you don't like that kind of story, you'll certainly won't like this. It reminded me of ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS or PITCH BLACK, in the way it respected the sci-fi themes and elements without watering them down for the audience. Tom Sizemore and Carrie-Anne Moss are excellent in their roles. Some of the cinematography is excellent. And while the fx are uneven (sometimes spectacular, sometimes obvious), the overall look of the film is always credible. And the ending is thrilling. If you like straight forward science fiction films like me, you'll enjoy this movie.

Movies like "Red Planet" remind me why I enjoy science fiction so much. Most sci-fi films today put the special effects first before characterizations. While that's not a bad idea (I have enjoyed several films in that vein such as "Independence Day"), films can become too dependent on that and that's when the fun drains away. "Red Planet" is a film that has solid special effects, but also a strong story and good characterizations. It was the second film released in 2000 to have Mars as its backdrop, the first being "Mission to Mars". "Mission to Mars", despite having top stars,master craftsman Brian DePalma directing and phenomenal special effects, was a little too pat and resorted to cliches (Not that I blame DePalma; he did the best he could with the script he had and the film wasn't bad at all) I didn't know anything about the plot and I think that helps with a film like "Red Planet". It allows suspense to be created from the series of crises that spring up on the astronauts and that's a benefit. But I will say this: the marketing campaign for "Red Planet" advertises this as your typical good guys versus evil aliens action fest. It is not. This is a more intelligent and stylish film than given credit for. It owes more to "2001" and "The Black Hole" or even the classic Republic serial "Radar Men from the Moon" than "Alien". It is about ideas, not effects and I LOVE films like that. I know a great many people will hate this film. That is because popular culture has brainwashed people into thinking mass entertainment revolves around effects only. There are some flaws (mostly in technological probability and pacing in the first 20 minutes)but writer Chuck Pfarrer and director Antony Hoffman remember that great sci-fi is also about the story and characters and the result is the best sci-fi film in recent years. ***1/2 out of 4 stars