Mission to Mars (2000)

Genre

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

Director

Brian De Palma

Country

USA

Cast

Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell, Kim Delaney, Peter Outerbridge, Kavan Smith, Jill Teed, Elise Neal, Robert Bailey Jr., Taylor Jones, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Storyline

In 2020 commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) is selected to lead the first manned mission to Mars. Upon setting foot on the red planet, a mysterious storm kills all but one crew member. Sent on a rescue mission is the crew lead by Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise). When they arrive, they find Luke surprisingly alive, that informs them that this was no ordinary storm. It was meant to protect something. But what?

Opinion

The catchy title, the director, and part of the cast were good reasons to watch this film, that turned out to be one of those movies that makes you think how anyone could spend so much money to make something this bad and what were actor like Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins even thinking. 

That being said, Mission to Mars is a shallow, ridiculous, dull film that makes no sense at all.

How many people do you need to write the dumbest story in the galaxy? Four is the magic number, apparently. In fact, the writing is the worst thing about this film. The horrendous script not only is illogical but completely lacks of plausibility, details and coherence.

In the first part of the film the astronauts act more like a group of teenagers instead of people of their caliber, exchanging out of place jokes. Not that dialogue gets better as the films progresses, unless you enjoy listening to dumb, banal and clichéd dialogue. 

The ending follows the negative flow. It is not absolute crap, but it seems mutilated, like they wanted to end this shit quickly because they had no idea how to develop it. 

It is visually beautiful I'll give it that. And it does have a hell of a score, which brings me to a question: what is Ennio Morricone's score doing here?

Worth of a mention is the terrible acting, which made this film even more painful to watch, and the complete lack of character development.