Year:
2000
Studio: Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow Pictures
Movie:
3/5
DVD: 1/5
Both Red Planet and Mission to Mars came out in the
same year. Mission to Mars
came out first and I thought it was a bit lacking. Great special
effects and a nice looking movie, but I thought the ending was rushed
and too pat. Red Planet has
many similarities to the other movie. Both have small crews in gigantic
space ships. Both have natural disasters which force the crew to
abandon their space ship and crash land on Mars with practically
nothing. Other than those superficial similarities, the movies are
remarkably different.
Earth is dying, not anytime soon but definitely within the next two or
three generations. Mars is a nearby planet that would require
comparatively little terraforming. So Earth sends various remote
rockets to Mars, packed with nuclear bombs to free up ice into water
and an atmosphere and algae to transform carbon dioxide to oxygen. It
went well for a while but then the algae disappeared.
The year is 2047. A crew of six are going to Mars to find out what went
wrong. Making up the crew is Commander Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss),
and Lieutenant Ted Santen (Benjamin Bratt) handling the piloting
duties. Dr Bud Chantilas (Terence Stamp), Chip Pettengill (Simon Baker)
and Dr Quinn Burchenal (Tom Sizemore) are the mission specialists.
Rounding out the crew is Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer), the only
technician. Another "member" of the crew is AMEE the robot, a
tiger-like Marine combat robot converted into a scouting role.
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After six
months the ship arrives at Mars and disaster strikes. A massive solar
flare cripples their ship. Everybody has to leave now, but Commander
Bowman has to stay behind to launch the lander. The lander crashes, Dr
Chantilas is mortally wounded, and AMEE is damaged enough to revert to
her combat mode. Meanwhile Bowman is dealing with the fires and other
damage on the ship.
What remains of the ground crew has the big mystery to solve while a
killer robot stalks them. What I like about the movie is that the
questions about Mars are solved without resorting to aliens. It's an
interesting mechanic having Commander Bowman up there while the guys
are down there. There is a romance subplot between Bowman and
Gallagher, but it sort of springs full-blown without warning because
the "falling in love" scenes aren't there.
The DVD has some deleted scenes but that's it.
What I like: it's a grittier science fiction movie than Mission to Mars. The story is more
action oriented and the questions have believable (to me) answers.
What I didn't like: The romance subplot wasn't developed enough. Either
do it more or cut it all out. The whole "Carrie-Ann Moss resuscitates
the male lead" ending was too Matrix-like for me.
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