R E V I E W S

Mission To Mars (2000)

Starring: Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle,

Connie Nielson, Jerry O'Connell
Director: Brian De Palma
Rating: PG

Studio: Touchstone

Rating: 3/10

By Stephen.

Cheesy dialogue, non-existing emotional satisfaction, rip-offs of some darn fine movies (The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey), cliches, and more cheesy dialogue is the best way to catalog De Palma's latest movie, “Mission To Mars.”

Commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) is the first man to lead a team of astronauts on a mission to Mars. Upon arrival, the team discovers an ancient, dome-like structure which looks like a face. A wild storm kills Luke’s team but leaves him only slightly injured. Months after, Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) leads his team of astronauts (Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, and Jerry O’Connell) on a rescue mission to Mars to look for Luke. Unluckily, their ship’s engine blows up and they become stranded in space which forces them to abandon ship. From this point on, “Mission To Mars” evolves into a boring fest of FX and once again cheesy dialogue.

I simply cannot accept this piece of raw rotten cheese. In some ways, it's a good movie. However, in more ways than one can possibly imagine, it's also a bad movie. The movie takes too long to develop its real story. The characters have no connection between themselves at all and subsequently, the audience couldn’t care less about them.

What did stand out were the huge amounts of FX used in this film. One scene in the beginning was especially outstanding. That wild hurricane, or whatever it was, simply was the best, sadly the only good thing about "Mission To Mars."

The time when corrections should have been made was in the writing process... and to see which screenwriters (Jim Thomas, John Thomas, Graham Yost) contributed to this script, I can only say I've lost all faith in the script crafting ability of these writers for this movie, maybe their future movies, too, but I have this gut feeling that they will never do such weak stuff every again.

The two Thomas brothers wrote "Predator" (and the sequel) and the other movie that had a toxic-pumped airplane heading for the USA ("Executive Decision" in this case). Graham Yost wrote the "Speed," but with “Mission To Mars,” he couldn’t do anything it seems.

"Mission To Mars" gets the lowest grade. Let's hope all the actors in the movie weren't completely oblivious when they read the script and decided to ink their names on the contract. The best solution is to forget this movie as fast as possible and move on to other things.

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