"Red Planet" is a science fiction movie that turned out to be better than I had expected. Not that I had expected it to be bad. From the previews though it was painted as a sort of scary movie, like Alien. Evil robot hunting people throughout a spaceship, or at least that's what I extrapolated from the previews. I wasn't eagerly anticipating the movie but I thought that Chris would like it so off we went.

The year is about 2050. Earth's environment is slowly deteriorating, such that it's predicted to become uninhabitable in 50 years. It's time to look for another home, and to that end Mars looks like a nice place, except for the lack of a breathable atmosphere. For the last few years rockets have been sent to Mars to stir up the crust, bring up some of the deep-lying ice, and seed the ice with algae.

Everything was going well. Algae was growing nicely, oxygen levels were slowly rising, then the algae started disappearing and oxygen levels started to drop. To solve the mystery, an International consortium has built a massive space- ship and has assembled a crew of six to go to Mars then find and fix whatever the problem is. Already on Mars there is some sort of pre-built habitat which the team can use for a base.

Commander Kate Bowman (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) leads the crew, which includes second in command, Captain Ted Santen (Banjamin Bratt) as copilot, Bud Chantilas (Terence Stamp) as Chief Science Officer, and Mechanical Systems Engineer Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer). Also with them are two civilians, Dr Quinn Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), bioengineering specialist, and Dr Chip Pettengill (Simon Baker), terraforming specialist. (There are less than five other roles in the movie, so it's not a big cast.) On the way to Mars we're introduced to the last crew member, AMEE (Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion), a surplus military hunter-killer leopard-like robot (that's gotta be a warning sign) converted into a scouting robot.

Once they reach Mars there's a solar storm that trashes the space ship. Most of the crew bails out in the lander module while Commander Bowman stays behind to make sure the lander can take off. The lander has been damaged though, so it crash lands a hundred kilometers from the Mars habitat. The first order of business will be to get to the habitat before the oxygen supply runs out. Meanwhile Bowman is alone in a dying ship frantically trying to repair it and get the systems running again (shades of "2001"). And that doesn't address their primary mission, one which is of paramount importance to the people of Earth.

That's the setup for the second Mars movie of the year. If you've seen "Mission to Mars" then you can see some of the similarities. Both are in essence disaster movies with a mystery behind them -- try to survive on Mars and discover what's really going on. But other than setting and general plot type the movies differ greatly. They both have good special effects and realistic science fiction, based on different assumptions though. "Mission to Mars" has more comedic elements, more tragic elements, it spans the emotional ranges better. But I didn't like the ending of it. "Red Planet" is more low key overall and has a more satisfying ending.

In terms of the acting there's nothing really spectacular. The characters are not bigger-than-life so I suppose everybody is a bit understated and the dialogue flows smoothly. There's just not much chance to act hysterical or angry or happy or sad in this movie. It's a nice science fiction movie and of the two I'd rather watch "Red Planet". Certainly it's more to my tastes than the last movie I saw "The 6th Day" which although it's science fiction also, it's really just an action movie.