Film Review: Mission to Mars (2000)

The worst thing that can happen to a cinephile is to watch a film made by someone with unquestionable talent, but apparent unwillingness to use it . Brian de Palma, one of the greatest directors in late 20th Century Hollywood, fits that description, at least in the latter stages of his career. If judged by single scenes, many, if not all De Palma’s films are masterpieces. Unfortunately, De Palma began to prostitute his talent by not caring about the quality of the scripts being given by major studios, resulting in plenty of celulluoid. One of the most infamous examples was 2000 science fiction film Mission to Mars. Devised as by Touchstone as "high concept" project, like so many at the time, it was pitted against Red Planet, another big studio film with similar theme and plot. In order to beat the competition, Touchstone released the film very early in the season, and, despite relatively good box office results during first weekend, was quickly abandoned by audience and savaged by critics.

The plot begins in (then future) year of 2020 when a small international team of astronauts led by American Luke Graham (played by Don Cheadle) embarks on a long-distance space journey whose ultimate destination is the surface of Mars. On the surface astronauts find an unusual object, but their attempt to investigate ends in a disaster that will be survived only by Graham, forced to remain trapped on an inhospitable planet with a small supply of water, food and air. Although NASA isn't entirely sure if Graham is able to survive for a few next months, it still arranges a rescue mission manned by his colleagues and friends - Jim McConnell (played by Gary Sinise), Phil Ohlmeyer (played by Jerry O'connell), Woody Blake (played by Tim Robbins) Woody’s wife Terri Fisher (played by Connie Nielsen). The journey is long and full of dangers, but despite great difficulties, a rescue party arrives on the red planet where they will be greetd by incredible discovery.

Critics had already recently grown accustomed to not expecting much from De Palma, but even the biggest pessimists among them have been very surprised with the low quality of Mission to Mars. The film looks rushed and incomplete, with apparent pressure from the producers leaving its mark even on De Palma's proverbial perfectionism. The running time is a bit shorter than usual for this type of film. On the other hand, that would matter little to viewers, because they would be left with impression of spending two days instead of two hours at the screen. Mission to Mars apparently misses even the trademark “show off” scenes by De Palma. The beginning, with an extremely boring, irritating scene of the family barbecue which features all the worst clichés and wooden dialogue, is good example of what audience might expect in the rest of the film. De Palma apparent isn’t bothered by poor script that doesn’t contain much drama or even the extremely slow pace of the action. Fans of Kim Delaney, star of NYPD Blue, will have opportunity to see their favourite actreess for a long time, even though the character she plays died long before the beginning of the plot, which, of course, does not stop De Palma from filling the film with completely unnecessary and extremely boring flashback scenes. De Palma, on the other hand, seemed to think that many would criticise him for "stealing" Kubrick’s work, so in the scenes inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, he paid more attention to product placement than whether such scenes would make any sense. The cast, made of prime American character actors, doesn’t tries too hard in their roles, apparently aware that they can’t do much with an idiotic script and a disinterested director. Soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone wasn’t very helpful either, and his score is terribly irritating, which shouldn’t surprise all viewers familiar with the opus of once legendary music author in the latter decades of his career. It would be unfair to say that Mission to Mars doesn’t have few at least marginally redeeming elements. The final scene, despite being obviously "borrowed" from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Abyss, features some interesting special effects, while Connie Nielsen (best known as Comod’s sister Lucilla in Gladiator) is at least eye-pleasing for certain segments of the audience. But this isn’t enough for viewers of Mission of Mars to avoid regretting two hours spent for this film.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

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