Wolff rating: MOSTLY HARMLESS
Plot summary: The least lucky astronauts ever go to Mars and have bad stuff happen to them.
Biased, pithy comments: Hastily-drawn characters played by veteran actors stagger through some special effects. I think I would have cared more if, like, these guys had any depth at all, but as it was I could barely tell Sizemore and Kilmer apart for the first half of the film. Worse yet, the characters themselves don't seem to give a sweet flying fig about their situation---at every opportunity, they admit defeat and wait to die. Haven't they ever seen ``Apollo 13?'' All this talk about the triumph of the human spirit, yet these people would be too angst-ridden to cook dinner, much less travel to Mars. Then, of course, reality seems stacked against them; for reasons unrelated to their character or human arrogance or anything else, they just have mishap after mishap after mishap. Still, with such perfunctory pontificating and dusty dry performances, it made me think of those crappy MST3K 50s cheapie space movies where everyone dies and learns about the stupidity of nuclear weapons. Skip.
Other Notes: DVD has deleted scenes that imply the movie was even longer and less interesting before they cut it down. Screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer also repsonsible for reprehensible ``Navy SEALs'' and other ponderous, uneven action films. He just landed in my permanent don't-watch category. It's funny; people have sort of liked the film now and again for how much it resembles a 50s Golden Age sci-fi story, and I can see how it might evoke that nostalgia. However, the fun of those books were that characters were always clever and resourceful in the face of adversity---these guys in this movie just sort of lounge around. Still, it's got to be better than ``Mission to Mars,'' which everyone says is the *worst* sci-fi film to come along in ages.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Carrie-Ann Moss, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Simon Baker, Terence Stamp.
Directed by: Antony Hoffman