Mission to Mars (2000) Reviews

• Unfairly Bashed

  jpb322000-03-10

  I have seen many reviews bashing Mission to Mars. I see why they've attacked the film but I think they missed that the excitement, action and deep humanity of this film far outweigh the forced quality of a few scenes. There is scene after scene in this movie that pulls the viewer's heart and mind nto some of the deepest veins of human emotion. More than once I felt myself drawn into the middle of intense depictions of love, terror or excitement. If a little subtlety were mixed into just a few scenes this movie would have stood out as one of the greatest and lasting human dramas in science fiction history. I heartily recommend this movie; it will transport you and involve you if you are just a little forgiving.

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• A Visually Stunning and Vastly Underrated Film

  gws-22003-08-08

  Visually, "Mission to Mars" is stunning. Nobody tells a story better with pictures than De Palma. The scenic design and photography kept me riveted to every frame. On the recommendation of a friend, I watched the movie in widescreen on DVD using a high resolution monitor. The visuals are so important that I cannot imagine watching a pick and scan version on a conventional TV set. Too much would be lost that way. The scene, early in the movie, where one of the Mars astronauts gets blown up made me levitate. Also, I though Tim Robbins' and Connie Nielsen's weightless dance in the spaceship on the way to Mars was lovely. The scene with the startling all white surroundings that the astronauts faced in the "faceship" (to coin a phrase) was also well done. I thought the performances were uniformly excellent. That fact and the wonderful visuals overcame sometimes excruciatingly bad dialogue so that it did not really detract from my enjoyment of the film. That being said, though, I loved the exchange where it was observed by one character that the mere three per-cent difference between the genetic makeup of men and apes "gave us Einstein, Mozart" and a second character adds, "Jack the Ripper." Some reviewers complained about the similarity of the film to "2001," but that is exactly what De Palma had in mind, I think. "Mission to Mars" pays homage to every sci-fi cartoon and movie ever made, from Buck Rogers to "Close Encounters," and does it well. Anyway, De Palma proved to me again that he really does march to his own drummer. I was hugely entertained and highly recommend this film -- but only if you watch it in widescreen on DVD or, better still, in a theater. Eight out of ten.

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• A difficult derivative sci-fi film

  mstomaso2005-05-21

  After a second viewing, I can say that I am still not sure what to make of this film. Many will see this as something of a remake of 2001. And yes, the film is visually almost plagiaristic of the Kubrick masterpiece. The two biggest problems are a lack in originality and thoughtfulness. From my rating, you can see that I did not despise this film. It's visually nice, and the performances are all good. However, I am not sure I can recommend it. I'm a sci-fi fan, and a scientist, so I was initially intrigued by the notion of a big-name dramatic film-maker doing a sci fi epic, which appeared, at least initially, to be hardcore sci-fi. By hardcore sci-fi, I mean fiction based on scientific reality, not fantasy with a tiny bit of science thrown in for decoration. An example, also using Mars as a vehicle, is Ben Bova's novel "Mars" - which focuses on the very edge of plausibility, only occasionally overstepping the bounds of scientific possibility. Film has rarely achieved this - a few interesting exceptions are Alien (the original), Outland and Silent Running. Hardcore sci-fi, which, I argue, this film could and should have been, is careful about that boundary. And 3/4ths of the way through Mission to Mars, it's still a hardcore sci-fi flick. Then suddenly, it's something else. I will leave that something else for you to discover, and stay focused on what the director and screenwriter were trying to do here. What we have here is not really a single plot, but a pastiche of plots that have been strung together into one long, mysterious and grandiose story line. The film starts out with a couple of scenes which might have been lost in Appollo 13 - providing a little bit of character development and letting us know that we are about to witness the first manned space flight to Mars. That flight ends pretty quickly, as virtually everything goes wrong. And as a rescue mission begins, the question then becomes, why is everything going wrong? Up to the point where the rescue mission enters Martian orbit, this central question is sustained and developed skillfully, but then , in my opinion, things start to go wrong with the film itself. There are major problems with what could have been the best aspects of this film. The spaceships are remarkably flimsy and poorly designed, but they look great! The safety protocols for the mission, about which we hear so much, are either not followed or incredibly naive. The heroes are not particularly clever about heroism, and seem to forget, at times, what the actual possibilities are for mobility in space (why not use the tether three times - twice out to Woody and once to get back after you run out of fuel, Terry?). The guy who authored the safety protocols does not appear particularly concerned with safety, or even protocols. The evolutionary biologist on the crew is amazingly poorly informed about the Paleozoic period of earth history and the evolution of species. I could go on. The film is broadly derivative of 2001 A Space Oddyssey, The Abyss, Star Gate, Event Horizon, Fifth Element, Contact, and a few dozen other somewhat entertaining but not particularly believable space / sci-fi adventures, but while it resembles, and in fact pays homage to these films (especially 2001), it never entertains quite as well. Why? Because these films do not pretend to be based on scientific ideas, but rather, aesthetics and humanism. While most of these films invite interpretation, Mission to Mars simply repeats ideas from previous films and doesn't even bother to recast them into an interesting new light. Mission to Mars is something that has been done many times before, and in more interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking ways. Technical proficiency, which is something this film exudes, is no substitute for a compelling story and interesting individual characters. Unfortunately, even in terms of technique, the film has some flaws. Some will disagree, but I found the soundtrack irritating, and the pace of the film very uneven to say the least. And the characters lives are so intertwined in the few character development sequences that only Sinise, Robbins and Bennings' characters develop rudimentary individualities. Despite his reputation, I can not hold Brian De Palma up to standards which are different than those of other film-makers, and I can not condone creating a special vocabulary or a sophisticated argument to permit interpretation of his films as part of some over-arching theme which only he and a few of his fans understand. There is a fine line between flattering imitation and shameless copying, so I'd rather not get into an extrapolated meta-film discussion of this film's relationship to 2001. I don't think this film is worthy of such a sophisticated analysis. There are some truly great moments in Mission to Mars. This should not be too surprising with the wonderful cast, big budget, and talented production team. What did surprise me about this film was the 2001-like 180 degree turn it took off of the map of scientific possibility 3/4ths of the way through the film, and I can't say that turn and its outcome really impressed me. If you're a sci-fi fan, or somebody with a very casual interest in science, you should probably see this. But if you haven't seen 2001 first, by all means, wait until you have. And don't take this one too seriously when you do get around to it. This has much more to do with fiction than science fiction.

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• The Eye of God

  tedg2001-11-29

  Spoilers herein. In my experience, there is no filmmaker like De Palma. As with Kubrick and Greenaway, you have to know what to expect going into a theater, because they do not concern themselves with storytelling in the ordinary sense. De Palma doesn't make films about life, and is unconcerned with the drama one normally finds there. He makes films about films, and since the target is an abstraction in the first place, the dramatic focus is flat, the acting obvious, the stories predictable -- all by design. By definition, we've already been wherever he goes. The value of the experience is in how he takes something that is ordinary and examines it in new ways. Its the 1890s Paris painting scene, where the eye is everything. We've seen him do Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Antonioni, and more. Here he tackles Kubrick, and the results are astounding. Kubrick does an end-on entrance of a spaceship with majestic passing; De Palma does too, and then enters a window to show Robbins and wife in an elaborate view, dancing the camera around them with Robbin's face reflected just incidentally. Kubrick has a clever shot of a man walking around the gravity ring; De Palma elaborates on this a hundred-fold with comings and goings and ups and ins and reversals until we are dizzy. 2001's spaceships were the stuff of pulp covers, but here we have even accurate rivet patterns, everything scrupulously close to NASA specs. 2001 has a cheap Kaleidoscope passage and some clean room visions when the makers are encountered. M2M's `makers' are encountered in an ever-cleaner, ever more abstract room. Incidentally, in the only clever element of the script, those makers show images of how they `seeded' Earth, with an ambiguity between the making of the image and the act itself. One doesn't go to a film like this expecting a traditional Lucas-like ride. This is intelligent, self-referential stuff targeting not the mind but the eye. I suppose a question is whether it can also be entertaining for kids. I suspect not. Kubrick himself never tried. The fault is with the marketeers who try and sell these films in the same way as simple thrill rides. Shame on them. Regrets to all the ticketbuyers expecting Spielbergisms. If you are an IMDB visitor and reading this, chances are you are serious about film. If so, I recommend that you see 2001, then this in one evening. Forget about story, acting, drama, and focus on where these gents take your eye. The thrill is that you become God -- what higher fantasy do you wish?

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• A Visual Masterpiece

  johnm_0012000-10-13

  So many critics blasted Brian De Palma's "Mission To Mars", that I feel I must have seen an entirely different film. Perhaps people were expecting "Armageddon", or any other number of "space" films. This is a film about people, not space. People who are great friends on earth, who must face challenges to their friendships and their humanity, while in space and on Mars. They could just as easily have been in Kansas. Brian De Palma (the greatest living visual director), takes us on a glorious journey, with his camera. The sets and special effects never overshadow the actors, who blend in seamlessly, to create a visual treat for the eyes. This is a tender and moving film about people and their relationships. It's a beautiful film, told in a very slow, deliberate manner. It pays homage to many other films, but it is its own entity; unlike any other "space" movie you have ever seen. The film features wonderful performances from its cast, an effective score by Ennio Morricone, and peerless direction from Brian De Palma. The nature of its stunning visuals demand that this film be seen in widescreen, ONLY. Highly recommended!

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