Brian De Palma, the master of suspense who gave us the legendary
retelling of The Untouchables, now turns towards
the heavens with Mission To Mars. This is essentially a big, fluffy popcorn
movie that’s extremely well-done in the technical sense, yet it never truly
reaches the mighty heights that it strives for. Despite the fact that it’s got a
great cast that includes Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise and Connie Nielsen, I still
had a lot of trouble believing that I was watching real astronauts--thanks to
the lame, unimaginative script that gives them really silly lines to recite.
The first mission to Mars, led by Luke Graham (Don Cheadle), finds a mountain on
the Red Planet with some strange properties. When they hit it with radar, the
"mountain" doesn’t take too kindly to that. A freak sandstorm kills all of
Graham’s crew, leaving him the only survivor.
Graham manages to get a last transmission back to earth, explaining the dire
situation, before all contact is lost. Woody Blake (Robbins), the commander of
the second team to visit Mars, argues that his assignment has now become a
rescue mission, and the Mars mission commander (played by an uncredited Armin
Mueller-Stahl) agrees. Jim McConnell (Sinise) joins the second crew, which
includes Woody’s hot wife Terri (Nielsen) and worry-wart astronaut Phil Ohlmeyer
(Jerry O’Donnell) as they go in search for Luke (that’s Luke Graham, not
Skywalker). Unfortunately the second mission to Mars fares little better than
the first, with the ship taking damage from a micro meteor storm.
Although they expertly fix the leaking atmosphere venting from their ship, the
crew misses another leak which causes their vessel to terminally explode (one
would think the Hal-like computer aboard the vessel would have warned the crew
about this mishap before it occurred). After more needless hysterics, the crew
finally get to the surface of Mars, where they discover something amazing and
astounding…well, not really. Fans of the National Inquirer may find it amazing.
If you’re going to remake 2001, it probably helps to keep in mind that Stanley
Kubrick’s seminal science fiction film still stands the test of time because it
treats its audience as if they are intelligent beings.
Mission To Mars unfortunately feels the need to SPELL-OUT-EVERY-DETAIL of its
mystery, making sure to whack the viewer over the head repeatedly with the
REALLY-BIG-DISCOVERY!!! And for SF fans, or even fans of real space exploration,
the big reveal will be nothing new, anyway. Another thing that irks me with this movie is the fact
that not only does it have product placement, but in two major scenes, real-life
consumer products are actually used to help advance the plot. And yet, in the
middle of all of this mediocrity, there’s a marvelous scene that shows a joyful
Connie Nielsen blissfully dancing with Tim Robbins to Van Halen’s Dance The
Night Away in the zero gravity compartment of their space ship.
This moment is so well-done, using plenty of De Palma’s trademark long tracking
shots, that it truly soars above the rest of the film; it feels like it came
from a completely different movie. It’s also frustrating, because the dancing
scene shows what Mission To Mars could have been--but isn’t: a real-science space
epic dealing with the trials and triumphs of exploring the red planet. Instead,
we get an uneven film that doesn’t know if it wants to be either hard science or
an ET fantasy, with plenty of overwrought drama that overall feels unbelievable
and contrived. When the real astronauts eventually set out for Mars--and I can’t
wait for when they do--hopefully they can bring this film along with them on the
ride. It should provide them with a good laugh.
--SF
