Ghosts of Mars (or as it's titled "John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars"; hey, I want writers to get credit too but to put your name in the title of the movie is a bit tacky) is a science fiction sort-of horror movie set on, naturally enough, the planet Mars. The year is 2167. Mars is 85% terraformed and still quite reddish, though with clouds. 640 000 colonists inhabit Mars, where the government is a Matriarchy (interesting, though it's never explicit in the movie, just everpresent considering women are in charge). Mysteriously, contact with many settlements in the southern hemisphere have stopped one by one, and no one knows why.

In the capital city of Cherys, an ore train arrived on auto-pilot. Only one passenger was aboard, handcuffed to a bed: Lieutenant Melanie Ballard of the Mars Police Force (and played by Natasha Henstridge). What happened to the rest of Ballard's squad? Well she has a tale to tell, one that ties in to the mystery of the southern hemisphere, a mystery that threatens all of Mars.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Ballard's squad was hitching a ride on the train, travelling to Sunshine City (or some other equally incongruous name) to pick up James "Desolation" Williams for transport back to Cherys. The squad is led by Captain Helena Bradock (Pam Grier) with Ballard second in command. Sergeant Jericho Butler (Jason Statham) is the womanizing veteran forever hitting on Ballard. Private Bashira Kincaid (Clea DuVall) and Private Descanso (Liam Waite) are both rookies assigned to the squad. Williams is a dangerous man who put six police officers in the hospital before he was captured, warns Captain Bradock, so be careful. The train has to go and pick up its cargo of ore, returning in six hours to pick them up.

As they get off of the train though, the find the town deserted. Looking around they quickly discover horrifying scenes of death and mutilation. Heck, the only survivors seem to be the prisoners in the jail: Williams himself (Ice Cube); Whitlock (Joanna Cassidy), who arrived in the town only last night; plus three others. Jeez, what's going on here? Bradock and Ballard make another recon of the town, where they encounter a strange sight.

A man in a rover, holding a knife and acting crazy. Before they can talk him down, he warns them to stay away then he kills himself. A tragedy to be sure, but as Ballard looks around she can't find Bradock. Sgt Butler arrives, to find that the man in the rover had destroyed the lock of the door. Since Ballard is a bit shocked by the events, he volunteers to look for the Captain while she goes back to make sure the rookies are ok. Later on Butler finds the rest of the miners holding some sort of primitive ceremony, complete with blood sacrifices. Has the rest of the town gone completely crazy?

It soon becomes apparent that whether or not the rest of the miners are crazy, what matters is that there are 200 of them and they're all out for blood. The police need all the help they can get, and since Ballard is the ranking officer she is free to enlist the aid of Williams. So with everybody armed with homemade grenades and weapons from the jail, it's going to be a long wait until the train comes back to rescue them.

As I said, the movie is sort of horror. It has a sort of horror basis but not many horror elements. Kind of like Aliens. One monster is scary, a hundred are just a bunch of targets and if you can shoot them and kill them then it's not quite so scary. And people don't die in horrifying ways all alone, for the most part. Someone getting decapitated in combat is not as frightening as when he's taken down searching a building by himself. So I would say that it's a science fiction thriller with lots of action.

Everything in the movie is red, as befitting Mars. Kind of reminded me of Pitch Black, which did it with colored filters so everything looked bluish. Here since it is a town, they have colored lights so the people aren't colored red too. Also, since the planet is almost terra-formed, they don't have to use breather masks, just these air dispensers which I guess are laced with something to make your lungs absorb oxygen better. The arms are standard combat rifles and pistols, no blasters or needlers here. It is Mars. It has a wild west feel to it, if the wild west existed today.

In terms of acting, Natasha Henstridge is quite good, as is Ice Cube. But it is an action movie, they just have to act tough, so it's more of a stretch for Henstridge. Jason Statham is pretty good. Clea DuVall is very quiet in this movie. I read the character's bio on the official web site and that does explain some of her actions, but since it's a minor character there's not much screen time there. Pam Grier is getting old, so she gets to be the tough Captain, which she does well.

Final thoughts. Treat this as a science fiction action movie and you'll like it fine. The movie doesn't push the edge of special effects, nor is it all that particularly original, but it is a fun summer movie. Lots of explosions, gunfire, hacking and slashing. I enjoyed it.