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MISSION TO MARS review
I'm here in Wichita Falls, Texas tonight... and I've only just returned from SIKES CENTER, where I watched MISSION TO MARS... the latest film from Brian DePalma. And oh boy has this film been taking it's licks.
And I have to say I can't agree. Sure the film has one of the worst scores in the long history of scoring from Ennio Morricone. A score that is so bloatedly pumped up, that I now know how the film was once testing pretty well... only to dive in the exact opposite reaction at the tailend of things.
Morricone's score is SOOOOO Pretentious and self-important that it nearly cripples the film. I say nearly, because soon as I began to hear that bloated score, I began to just... tune it out in my head. To try to focus on the rest of the film. And with the exception of what could quite possibly be the worst alien since MAC & ME, this movie does do quite a bit right.
Now the film isn't anything near 2001. Instead, it feels more like the same genre as 2010, which was pretty darn wonderful... but this film does fall quite a bit short of that mark as well. Instead, this is a shaky hand movie with some beautiful effects work (except for that hidieous alien). The surface of Mars is stunning... reminding me of some sort of vintage Chester Bonestill. The space vistas... gorgeous. The long one-shots in the ship... hypnotic. A film that is notably cinematic... unlike the recents pieces of complete excrement... SUPERNOVA and EVENT HORIZON and SOLDIER.
I enjoy the performances of all the various leads. Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise are as fantastic as always. Tim Robbins? For me, he just became the lead candidate for Reed Richards... I think it was the bit of grey in his hair, and the fact that he's in charge of the four person crew... 2 men (the same age), 1 man (younger) and Robbins' wife. They are the fantastic four.
This is not a complete waste, nor is it unwatchable. However, I would love to see this film with the temp track, because it HAD to be miles better than this horrid Morricone score. It's a wavy hand movie. Pretty good, but filled with holes and flaws. Would have loved a real score on this one.
Far better than the last couple of DePalma blanks, but then SNAKE EYES was a highly interfered with film.
So it was that I left Sikes Center... the mall theater of my junior high and high school years. A place where I spent 4 nights out of seven. I have to say that the theater has far improved under the management of CARMIKE, whereas when it was in the hands of AMC... p.u. whew... Hopefully, I'll be headed back to Austin tomorrow night, but it might be... Thursday before I return. Sigh. I miss Austin already.
To Darth Psychotic Below: I didn't say it had a bad plot. It does have some plot holes, but I love the air leaking scene, the initial sandstorm, the space walk stuff, the zero-G dance, the figuring out of the signal and lastly... I loved everything inside the thing except for that shitty as hell CG-as could be... ALIEN. This movie has flaws and merits. It is not a great film or even a very good film. Instead it is just an ok movie. The hardest to define...
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I totally agree harry just because this movie has a bad score and bad plot doesn't mean its that bad especially if your getting some kickback from it. :p
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Mar 15, 2000 1:48:54 AM CST
Oh man, that yodel was so good, I wish I was eating it right now
by darthjoe
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The whole movie is just amazing. I never said "Whoa, that's a great effect" because it never crossed my mind that I was watching effects shots. The characters were real people. The scene of the couple dancing in zero gravity to Van Halen's "Dance The Night Away" was just perfect. If they'd just thrown a guy in some makeup, put in a puppet, or for god's sake, even thrown a jedi robe on a stagehand and kept his face in shadow, this would have been one of my all time favorite films. I still REALLY like it, but my love lies elsewhere...
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This movie sucked big time. It DID have it's moments though. Like the first half-hour or so. The sandworm was such a brilliant effect, the rest of the movie looked like crap. Of course, the alien would looks stupid no matter what, but the contrast between the two was as wide as Vallis Marinaris. (which they didn't show. As well as Olympus Mons, bastards!) Best part was when the misogynist astroboy got ripped apart by the sandworm. That was worth my 8 bucks. The rest of the movie was such garbage though. And why (oh why) did they only concentrate on Cydonia? (The area of Mars with the "face". Whatever.) There are so many more interesting parts of Mars. They completely lost me when they revealed that it's actually a face. ARGH! They could tell a story about our origins as a species coming from mars without the alien waiting inside the "face". Totally preposterous. Well, at least it was better than Supernova.
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This is depressing. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm afraid that Harry and the many other reviewers might be right about the score. Ennio Morricone is one of my favorite composers, and to hear that this is possibly his worst score...NOOO! Don't let this be true. Despite the fact that pretty much everyone else hated the score, I'll still have faith in EM. 99% of the reviews can be wrong, can't they? (tear rolls down cheek) Anyone? Uh...if it's true, then I'll resort to the only thing a scared, defenseless, faced-with-the-hard- truth talkbacker can do: I'll call Harry fat! Yeah, that's it! I'll call him a bloated sellout! Oh, wait a minute, I think "bloated sellout" is copyrighted by someone else. I'll show *him*, all right...
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Can we say insomnia? Anyways, I don't think I'm going to see this one in the theatres. I might just wait for the DVD with all the little extras in case I get bored with the actual movie. The more I hear about it, even the good stuff, the more I realize that the entire story just does not interest me. Besides, I can't get over the "That DNA looks human!" comment. Cracks me up everytime, so I figure I would annoy people in the theatre who were really interested in watching the movie when I laugh during the serious parts.
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Now I know I can't trust your reviews... I saw this last saturday and im even upset i paid for the matinee ticket. yeah i heard bad reviews but decided to check out the movie anyway just because I was curious, but man what a crapfest! I hope they make another MST3K movie and choose this one as its carrier pic! Brian De Palma must redeem himself!
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maybe if it had more VAN HALEN as background music it would've been more 'defineable' :p
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You can say all you want about Ennio Morricone's score in this film. Even if it's as bad as Harry claims, his work on last year's The Legend of 1900 vindicates whatever he's done here. I've listened to the 1900 soundtrack over and over and it's simply beautiful. For anyone who remembers the film, the piece Tim Roth's character plays while watching the young girl through the window is alone worth buying the CD. Oh yeah, I wouldn't see Mission To Mars even if the first 100 ticket holders received a complimentary blow job--not even from Brian DePalma himself (this is within the realm of possibility, seeing as how he's been "sucking Satan's pecker" for the last decade--thanks Bill Hicks).
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Here's the report. Lost course for several days due to near-collision with asteroid, but we can still reach destination as planned... which may be Mars, or Hell. This voyage is a cursed abomination! If it were possible I'd come back now, return the ship to Earth and blow it up
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I'd have to say that Harry has pretty much hit it on the nose. I, too, must have tuned out the music right away, because I honestly don't remember it. My only disagreement with Harry is over solving the "test." Talk about hand-waving! Any high school biology student can (or at least should be able to) tell you that at the molecular level, which is the only thing they showed us on the screen, DNA looks like DNA (nothing at that level to identify it as "human"). They kept talking about chromosomes, which are only visible at the cellular level (and, if viewed just before or after cellular division, would be identifiable as "human"). They also kept talking about how the pattern was divided into groups of three, which would correspond to codons. These are groups of three bases on a section of DNA that code for a specific amino acid once transcribed to RNA. Again, there's nothing at that level that could be identified as human, thus no way for them to "pass" the "test." Along the same lines, Quinn's, er ... Phil's M&M DNA structure *might* have been a long enough sequence to code for a single, very small gene. Oh yeah, I also had a problem with the obviously-not-dust-storm-produced clouds. However, in the film's favor, I must say that enjoyed the ride. I'd give the film a 7 out of 10 on a "popcorn flick" scale, and a 3 out of 10 on a critical scale (and 5 out of 10 on a scientific accuracy/plausibility scale).
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I've been saying it all along...but Mission to Mars finally nailed it. Tim Robbins IS Reed Richards. Glad someone else knows what the hell I'm talking about.
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I won't give details (because i wouldn't want to ruin the movie for anyone) but one of the funniest moments in movie history exists in this film. For those who saw it, it includes Tim Robbins, his wife, and a grappling gun. I'm sure it was meant to be heart-wrenching, but I was pissing myself laughing(and most everyone else in the theater was too). "Point of no return" was worth a chuckle, and the "holding hands" and "tear" alien scene did make make me laugh un-controllably, but that first scene mentioned was the kicker. BRAVO DEPALMA!!!!
i don't think he acually meant for these scenes to be funny, which is probably why he walked out of the premier (so I've heard) -
Okay, people: Were you paying attention? That is no alien! It is a Holographic type projection of an alien. Its not meant to look real. Were those real planets floating around? NO! They were some type of projected imagery and so was the alien. Please! He evaporates for crissakes!
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Harry... we have already discussed this over and over... but "Event Horizon" is not that bad... and I am glad you like "2010"... I heard so many unjustified critics about that one... I even like it better than "2001" (go on guys flame me). I agree "2001" is certainly a all-time classic, but guess what ? I don't like classics... I like better something really tensed like "2010"... Unfortunately I haven't seen that one for so long.. Is it on DVD ?
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What the hell happened?! The movie started out interestingly. The space stuff was great. You can tell that the film makers worked with NASA to keep it as authentic as possible and that made it that much more fun to watch. Mars looked great. Tim Robbins' noble exit was a great scene, but that crying Martian..what the fuck! The film would have been good had the astronauts left Mars without ever going in "the face" leaving it a mystery. Once they went in and saw the simplistic computer animated message the martians left, as Don Cheadle explained what it meant in his simplified over dub, the movie died. DePalma gave us one of the stupidest endings in recent history. With all the months that went into putting this story together, I can't believe this is what they came up with. Somebody here mentioned that the Martian looked like one of the animated ants from ANTZ and that's exactly correct, except that the animated characters in ANTZ looked ore real. What a disappointment.
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First of all, let me say that I disagree with you Harry-- as I think this movie was a total piece of shit and everyone in the theatre at the 10:30 pm Saturday-night opening-weekend screening at El Capitan in L.A. were riotously laughing in disbelief at this piece of complete excrement-- Event Horizon was better!!!
While I, like everyone else, thought the CGI alien was crappy when I saw the flick-- upon hindsight it makes sense. Because this is not an actual alien! It is a 3-d holographic project left behind within the ship's programming just as the model of the solar system was a 3-d holograph. It looked like graphics instead of a "real" alien because it was supposed to be a computer generated alien and not a real alien.
Just a theory anyway . . . -
it made me feel like I was riding The Haunted Mansion at Disney World . . .
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I have to agree with most of what 'ol dude who said you're smoking crack said...and your remarks about Event Horizon and Soldier are way off the mark...excrement? Puh-Leez. I'm not the guy who has an animated GIF of himself slurping up his own snot...
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First off, Carmike cinemas rock. They are nothing compared to those shit-filled corporate fucks of United Artists. The UA theaters where I live have no fuckin clue what the word projection means. Those Nazi bastards.
Harry, I agreee with you about the score. But I think they should have brought in Ira Newborn. He has done such great films as BASEketball (a tour de force film) and the Naked Gun series. Looks like the only shitty movie on his record is Mallrats. But, I mean, everyone can be forgiven. Well, no, I take that back. He can't be forgiven for contributing to that abortion of a film called Mallrats. I think his work on Mission to Mars would have worked well and been greatly appreciated. Bi!
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So, should I see this movie or not? Some are saying it's sh1t, on the other hand others are saying it's very sh1t. I'm confused. Glengarry.
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I agree with this review almost completely. The movie in and of itself isn't very pretentious (as some people have suggested); it's really the music that creates this effect. The main problems I had with this movie involved the need for everything to go wrong. (What do you mean we forgot to shield the fuel lines?) Why does Hollywood think that they half to kill off half the cast in an adventure/sci-fi movie? It just made it seem so...clich
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...that starts off at a backyard barbeque on Earth. Yeah, like *that's* really interesting. And after the funnel storm sequence (the movie's only good scene), the film take *forever* to get to Mars! They establish this facinating idea of an honest to God alien structure on Mars, and then waste most of the movie on comparatively boring stuff like a hull breach and the crew trying to get into that floating tin can. I didn't find any suspense or drama in any of that, and it didn't help that those scenes are rife with heavy handed music (organ music for a space walk?!?), and some of the most blatent product placement that I've seen in a movie recently (it's nice to know that future space missions will be well stocked with Dr.Pepper, which is also good for finding holes in the ship's hull, and M&M's. As long as they're shoving brand names in our faces, why not Mars bars? It'd be more appropriate). Then, when they
*finally* get to Mars, they have to waste even more time dealing with the one survivor of the previous mission. I don't understand why the story had to be done as a rescue mission in the first place. They could have just left enough survivors from the funnel cloud scene, so that the original mission team could deal with the alien structure. This would have avoided all that boring hull breach stuff. When the film finally gets around to the face and all it's mysteries, it's handled very badly on both a special effects level (I don't care if that alien was real or a hologram, it look awful, and that sappy scene where it sheds a tear had the audiance I saw it with laughing quite hard) and a script level. By the end of the movie, I felt like I had just taken a *real* long voyage for nothing. I'll take "Pitch Black" over this high minded bordom anyday. -
Some have said that the alien is just supposed to be a hologram, and I can understand that, but the dialogue in the movie specifically states, "but one stayed behind". Also, the people walk through the asteroid fields without a problem, but they can hold hands with the alien. On the other hand, he does dissolve. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, even if it was a hologram, the planets and buffalo and such looked very real; why would the alien's representation of themselves look so bad?
When I saw this film last Friday down here in south Texas, there were about three people a few chairs from me that were laughing and snickering through the whole movie, and the only scene I feel where this was justified was this right here. If you're a film snob, fine, but don't ruin an experience for everyone else. Even though I've got to admit I might've released a rather irritated sigh the first time the alien came on screen. -
I have read Harry's reviews and all those scenes that he mentioned are indeed good, but those scenes will not make up for what is essentially a pretty bad film. I mean, NOTHING really happens !!! There is NO thrilling moments in the film. The only scene that was the tiniest bit exciting was the Tim Robbins scene, and it was obvious that he was going to die. I didn't really feel for the characters. The character defining moments were not only boring, but they were bad acted aswell. I mean, I don't really care for the Bruckheimer action extravaganzas, but at least they were fun to watch while you're in the theatre. This movie is just plain boring. About 2000, that movie is pretty slow and boring as well, but it actually make me think about the movie - That is the reason I will buy it on DVD when the special edition comes out next year. 2001 made me think like, what the fuck, what the hell is this ? Why the hell are they showing monkeys ??? What the hell is the Starchild ??? I still don't know these answers and thats why I want to see them again. Ofcourse, Kubrick is a master but still M2M doesnt have any memorable scenes. Gary Sinise is ok but when they kill Robbins, anything worth watching in the movie instantly dies. Still Cheadle is pretty good but worthless in this movie. I mean, this wasn't totally bad, but just another worthless flick in the thirty or so flicks that have come out this year. What the hell happened to DePalma ???? This guy made Scarface and Carlito's Way!!!! Now he's making shit like Snake Eyes and this. Watch The Ninth Gate, it's a thousand times better than M2M. On a side note, please don't compare this worthless shit to Event Horizon. That film kickes ASS with a capital S!!!!!
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Mar 15, 2000 8:06:22 AM CST
Harry, on behalf of the great social mecca that is Wichita Falls
by r_dimitri22
...it's Sikes Senter -- not Sikes Center. My mom likes to make fun of the obnoxious spelling. Glad to hear you were up in Tatooine: my affectionate name for the place where I was raised, because if there's a bright center to the universe it's the planet that's farthest from. Of course, this young Jedi left before the harvest and is now toiling in the Potomac swamps of Dagobah.
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man harry, i would feel sorry for you being in wichita falls if well, you know, i wasn't too.
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I responded to the "Sikes Center" opening before reading the entire review. Now that I have read it, I find out that you were in Wichita Falls during your junior high and high school years. Which schools did you attend? I wonder if our paths ever crossed. I would have been two or three years behind you. What do you think of the renovated Sikes Senter theaters? The two larger ones are o.k., but I think the others are like broom closets.
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Had the misfortune to see M2M last night...
All I can say is, at least is was a cheap Tuesday showing! Gad that score was awful! yick the dialogue! Even Tim robbins was in there for a paycheck.... hell they all were except Jerry O'Connel! Even Don Cheadle/Tim Meadows!
Here's my big question....
WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH THE FRIGGING AMERCIAN FLAG?
After showing off the "World" Space Station, with the Euro mission controllers, the crew of Mars 1 had two Americans, a French woman, and a Russian cosmonaut, and they happened to only plant an American flag?
Stupid Yankee Hollywood!
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Harry, it's Chesley Bonestell, not Chester.
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Well, maybe not the worst, but right up there. I agree that the music was heavy handed and self important (there was a moment when I wondered if The Phantom of the Opera had stowed away on the rescue ship), but the directing itself was the worst crime!
When one of our brave astronauts goes to comfort his son in a tree house, the camera pans slightly down and to the right to frame a Dr.Pepper can!!! Dr.Pepper is then used in an attempt to save the ship later in this celluloid TP roll!
It was so bad that several couples had walked out and the movie itself became an episode of MST3000, with the audience boing, hissing, laughing at and talking through the rest of this foul experience.
MOON TRAP was more entertaining... -
The film was OK. It started with a lot of promise, but ran out of gas. Almost no action in the second half of the film. If you are a regular listener to Art Bell, you already knew where the story was going. Did anyone notice how white Don Cheadle teethe are after saying he has been stranded on Mars for over a year. HE cant shave or cut his hair, but the teeth look great!
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I agree with your views on the movie, I left the movie theater feeling entertained, its got action, nice special effects, and some funny moments. Sure, the alien is undeniably stupid, with plot holes and a score that sucked, but I thought it was $5 well spent, better than twiddling my thumbs at home for two and half hours.
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The alien was supposed to be part of the presentation. A hologram of some sort. But yes, this was not very clearly defined. They should've had some glithes or something.
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Harry,
What has happened to you? I agreed with you about pitch black. But M2M is the worst movie ever. It has NO drama, NO pacing, a HORRIBLE script, and every sci-fi movie ever made is ripped off by this load of a film. Even the special effects were horrible. The alien crying reminded me of the indian commercial, where the indian cries because people are throwing trash on the ground. AND, we didn't need to see Woody after he kills himself. That was pure porn. This movie is what would happen if Edward D. Wood, Jr. would have been able to get major studio backing for one of his films. To end, I quote the great Tim Burton, because what he says is probably what DePalma was thinking the day after shooting started, "I always like to adopt the Ed Wood delusional approach to filmmaking, and think that whatever you are doing is the greatest thing of all time, whether it's true or not." Sorry, Mr. DePalma, in this case, it wasn't.
Back to Mezzaluna I go!
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This movie was "Starcrash" without David Hasselhoff. And anyone who has seen "Starcrash" knows what I mean. If you haven't seen it, you should have rented it instead of going to see this load of a movie.
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You continually rip on EVENT HORIZON, yet give a thunbs-up to the following *crap*: MISSION TO MARS, THE HAUNTING, LAKE PLACID, SCREAM 3, THE LOST WORLD, GODZILLA (no taking back an opinion, that review will follow you forever), DEEP IMPACT...I could go on. Harry's good at getting spoilers and digging around, but can't identify a good film. Hence his flagging reputation of late...
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Mama always said if you cant say anything nice, so ok, we have Tim Robbins confirming that he is every fan boys wet dream as Reed Richards, and ummm, wait wait wait, oh, now we know WHY we hate shitty CGI...... Seriously, why do they spend the money on CGI when its not gonna be great? Really good CGI can be really cool, Really bad CGI is shit! For god sake, why dont more people go call brian henson over at the creature shop, i would bet a weeks worth of clean underwear that he would be able to do something interesting and better looking with the money. Plus there is the advantage of keeping all the eyelines straight, remember? Qui Gon looking over Jar Jar Fetchit's head when talking? Just a thought.
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Harry you are an Industry Pawn, M2M was complete hokey garbage!
You are wasting everyone's time.
No more reviews from you. -
You know, one of the things
that annoyed me the most
in that M2M thing was the lack
of professionalism of the
astronauts. I mean, there comes
that huge tornado and what
do they do? They stand there,
looking around. When I saw that
I thought: you dumb asses, get
the hell out of there! Also,
who was the idiot that allowed
a married couple in a long space
trip. Think about sexual tension.
And *spoiler* in the end one of
them decides to stay there, without telling anything to
mission control.
By the way, the score sucked.
And I'm a big of Morricone. -
Nuff said!
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I saw this movie on opening day, I don't regret it... it wasn't great but it was alright. Please can we see an end to the Event Horizon bashing!? I liked that show, it wasn't bad at all... I'll never understand the hostility toward it. And anyone who was stupid enough to go see Supernova deserves what they got, I'm sure it sucks ass. Snake Eyes? one of the worst movies I've ever seen... right up there with Wild Wild West and Magnolia.
Anyway yea this film had a lot of problems but in the end it was ok. The music, you're right... was overly self-important. There were a lot of ridiculous things, but IT'S A MOVIE. The sandstorm thing was a guarding mechanism, so that's why it behaved with purpose. I know most people know this but I think I saw at least one guy who didn't in here... didn't I? Ok, the alien, of course it was a hologram... but of course that doesn't make ANY kind of excuse for how it looked, I think that is how they were supposed to look, exactly. I think we were meant to believe that over time, and they way they were made... differently than us because of the whole different planet issue. I think that was maybe how they were supposedly made. But, I think it could've been a slightly abstract representation... maybe, so maybe the hologram thing is worth mentioning. Who knows? it didn't look that bad. Some people are just born to bitch, it seems. That's their lot in life. In the theatre I saw this in, there was not one laugh... there was a bastard with a squeaky seat that everyone was ready to kill though. But there was actually a good bit of applause at the end of the film, not as much as at the end of the X-Men trailer at the beginning though. Another movie you will all berate cause you hate everything. Cya -
..... I admire DePalma for his boldness in ending the film on such a downbeat note. After all, with absolutely no rations for the long trip back to Earth, the three surviving astronauts are doomed to starvation. Perhaps, they'll turn to cannibalism. O'Connell Burger anyone?
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Ok, Harry, you lost me with your Mac & Me dis...worst alien movie? I believe that would be ID4, thankyouverymuch.
Anyone that can't relate to a movie that features an E.T. rip-off-alien that dresses as a teddy bear for a 10-minute song and dance at McDonalds(with numerous perky McDonalds employees), should have their head examined. -
Now, I must admit that I was one of the first people to cringe reading Harry's glowing 'Godzilla' review (which remains one of the worst movies ever made) but 'Mission To Mars'? Come on Harry. I've always liked your opinions on film and have been a fan of the site for many years, but Mission To Mars is quite possibly the most over-blown, pretentious, laughable mess I ever had a chance to see (thank God I saw a free screening). Gary Sinise pretty much looked like he had just woken up from a coma with two black eyes throughout the ENTIRE film. Tim Robbins, who I usually like, sucked the fat big one. I think Jerry O' Connell was about the only decent thing about the film (except for a few cool special effects scenes). You don't even need to see the movie. Just watch the trailer and the whole plot will be pretty much revealed (except for the frighteningly stupid looking alien). This was just bad bad filmmaking and I hope it dies out real quick at the box-office to make way for a really great movie opening this weekend, 'Erin Brokovich' (Soderbergh triumphs again!)
Peace,
Out! -
Someone called that scene "pefect", well doesn't it strike you as weird why people in 2020 would be dancing to music that is by then 40 years old? The scene showed no imagination. And this is the WORST film at product placement, it was shameful.
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I agree with Harry somewhat. the score abismal. the acting, top notch and yes, campy dialogue. The effects stole the show. I'm sorry I'm a sucker for the details.The American flag was not digital on amrs surface, i could see the rod that kept the flag "weightless". So I could say it was entertaining (not $9 entertaining)in a cheesy way. Just because it is pretty, doesn't make it better than event Horizon (but waaay much better than "Supernova")
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There's nothing like "Pod People" to brighten up your day! "Mystery Science Theater" version, of course!
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The writers and tech advisors for this movie oughta be shot. First, the stupidity of a lethal 'security test' on the 'Face on Mars' (I have a feeling someone in post production finally woke up to the fact that NASA has been distributing the pictures that debunk that fairytale all over the net.) I mean, ok, let's leave a puzzle lock on the door, but KILL whoever tries but fails? What, did the martians expect that aborigines would evolve to try pick their lock through some sort of natural radar? Yech.
Then there was dumb exploding engine. Believe it or not, o stupid writers of M2M, micrometeors are a known risk, one that NASA would guard against. Also, NASA can't afford a friggin' fuel pressure sensor? And since the pre-burn checklist included O2 and H2 checks, that means the fuel was liquid hydrogen. News flash for the writers: Liquid hydrogen doesn't freeze when it leaks. It evaporates like a muther.
But let's assume they could've come up with a graphic REALISTIC reason for the explosion. That moronic 'abandon ship' ploy says the writers don't know jack shit about orbital dynamics. Yeah, two trajectories might intersect within a kilometer - a billion to 1 shot - but ain't no way in hell they'd match velocity. The short form of this story is that, if Tim Robbins somehow managed to intersect his flying body with said 'REMO' (even NASA isn't that lame) said REMO would have a nice, neat Tim Robbins shaped hole blasted through it from the impact.
Stupid plot, bad tech, horrible music, wooden dialogue and hyperbolic acting. What the hell did anyone like in this dog? It had explosions and space ships? I just wish it could be run on MST3K. Maybe someone will make a pirate DVD of this piece of crap and record a MST3K notes track. -
This film as atrocious. The only way it could have been hammier or more lead-fisted was if the Mars astronauts also took along a golden retriever that expired in the loss of the ship, yet somehow came bounding out triumphantly at the end of the film. The effects were average with the models, terrible with the CGI. Just terrible! And how did that micrometeorite go through that guy's hand, and the helmet behind him, yet not punch a hole clear through his forehead? Or maybe I just wanted that to happen so badly I'm projecting. And the greenhouse tent? And when that little rover got the door to open, why didn't they just drive the little rover IN? Oh, and one last thing; fuel is used in space only to alter velocity, not maintain it. To catch up with someone, all you do is speed up faster than they are, and coast. This is different from De Palma's career, however, where coasting rapidly gets you shunted into the 3/$5.00 video bargain bin at Wal-Mart.
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"Food, eating, the theatre." Pod People, without Joel and the 'Bots ripping it to shreds, would be better than sitting through this misconceived garbage again. Anybody who can find a way to get a bad performance out of Don Cheadle should never work again. Sorry, Brian..... it's over.
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wasn't even close to scientifically accurate. Missing chromosomes _inside_ the DNA strand?
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1. Astronauts usually don't get wasted in their kid's treehouse the night before a big launch.
2. Take a note from Dune's own Paul Atreides: When you see a sandworm, RUN.
3. I'm whistful of the days when astronauts were only USAF hotshots. "LIFE REACHES OUT TO LIFE?!" 2020 is going to SUCK.
4. Alien: SACK OF JIZZ!
5. Props to Don Cheadle for managing to find a Klingon War-Axe on the Mars surface to attack "hallucenations" with.
6. The fucking ship nearly depressurized! How come Tim Robbins' head just turned into silly puddy instead of exploding? I HATE YOU BRIAN DEPALMA!
7. For those of you who haven't seen the movie but would like to experience the same pain I did, go to apple.com, get the trailer, then lay a "Slip n Slide" accross an unpaved driveway. Go to work.
8. Props to Don Cheadle, again, for narrating the "life simulation". The other scientists in the room didn't understand what was going on.
9. Dear Brian DePalma, how can you make a movie that answers the question "where does life come from" without any ambiguity? Was this a kids movie? Was this a movie for retards (in which case, thanks for casting Jerry O'Connel!)? In any event, you're a horrible human being. Since your first films, you've been blatantly lifting scenes frame-by-frame and presenting them as your own. Some would argue this is "homage", but I would argue to the contrary, saying that an homage would give "big ups" to the original filmmaker. You present them in a manner that seems to suggest "hey, wow, bet ya haven't seen this one yet!" Thanks for regarding the public-at-large too stupid to see the steps sequence in Eisenstien's "Potemkin", or most of Hitchcock's "Vertigo," and now (making matters worse is the fact that the man JUST DIED) Kubrick's "2001." You smoke a LOT of cock, sir, and I hope Zeus smites thee. -
Harry, you got one thing right. The score is awful. I was laughing at points because it was so inappropriate and just made the movie even more ridiculous. The dialogue was god-awful, the acting was terrible, and the movie was slow as hell. They spend maybe five minutes at the end on the point of the movie, and anyone who had seen the trailer or tagline on the poster already knew what the point was. It was not entertaining at all, and (SPOILER) Tim Robbins' death was hysterical. So cheesy. Let me put it this way. If you're watching a movie and Jerry O'Connell is the best part, you know you're in trouble. I'd rather be forced to watch The Mummy over and over again then ever see this piece of shit again.
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Mar 15, 2000 11:58:22 AM CST
O.K., here's my littany of problems with this M2M crapfest
by monkeylucifer
Sorry, Harry, but Mission to Mars licks anus, the old Disney World ride was a thousand times better, hell I'd sit through "If You Had Wings" again before I'd watch M2M again. Reasons why it sucked: ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** 1. Horrible dialogue 2. God-awful acting by good actors, truly a crime against humanity 3. Terribly derrivitave story that rips off many, many sci-fi sources and does so in unimaginative ways, 4. Product placement the likes of which we haven't seen since Back to the Future 2. Let's see, there was Penzoil, SGI, M&Ms, Dr. Pepper, Isuzu, Compaq, etc., etc., etc...I felt that the cost of my ticket should have been drastically lowered, as the film was a big commercial half the damn time!!! 5. The lamest excuse for the seeding of Earth, that I HAVE EVER HEARD!!! If the Earth's atmosphere was so like the aliens, then why the fuck didn't the colonize it?!?!?!?! Why fly millions of miles away, when there's a fucking class M planet right fucking next door!?!?! And if they're soooo benevolent and advanced, then why would they kill anyone who gave the wrong signal to open the big giant face? That's be like the fellowship getting killed because Gandalf said the wrong words to open Moria. 6. The most flagrant disregard for science in a supposedly scientifically accurate movie that NASA has given their "blessing" to ever. These so called astronauts are about a reckless and moronic as could be, and NASA still gives it their OK? WTF!?!?! 7. As about an unmemorable score as you could ask for. 8. Tim Robbins character's death.....so bad, so bad, ugh. Really, I could go on like this for hours. Admit it Harry, it sucked, it just plain sucked. P.S. Hey De Palma, Speilberg called and he wants the ending from Close Encounters back.
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If you've gotten this far down the talkback then I'm sure you're getting the impression that this film sucks donkey nipples (new one!) so I can't say anything more that hasn't already been said. This is one of the worst films in recent memory and should fail miserably at the box office. I was laughing my ass off the entire film. But not too much b/c some guy kept telling me to shush. He was actually taking it all seriously. I usually don't make a peep when I go see a film just to respect others but this film just dragged all the politeness out of me. De Plama oughta be lynched for what he did. I'm surprised he didn't take his name off the film after the first screening (maybe he thinks it's actually good!) It makes me wonder how he keeps getting work. Maybe it was the hack writers who are to blame. Who wrote this crap. If I had the money I'd put a bounty out on them. Such God-awful dialogue should be illegal, and the whole "lets explain EVERY facet of every detail in the dialogue just in case the audience turns out to be a bunch of uneducated retards" attitude just pisses me off. What a waste.
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How come the EMP that destroyed all the circuitry at the camp didn't destroy the circuitry on the rover or the greenhouse or Luke's space suit? Crap, crap, crap, crap.
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Yeah it wasn't great. If the science stuff wasn't completly perfect, who cares, it's a movie. Get over it. I don't care about the score, I rarely pay attention to it in any movies. The ending was hokey, and some plot holes (why is it that Gary Sinise refused to put on his helmet claiming there is "no time" while Robbins is making kissy faces with his wife?) but I enjoyed it for the most part.
Guys why do you pick apart movies you consider bad for minor faults that really don't take away from the movie? If a movies bad it's not because you know that there was a chromosome doesn't go here or there. -
Speaking of sci-fi movies, does anyone know about this site Supershadow.com? The guy who runs it, Mickey Tuttle, claims to have the Ep II script and under certain conditions can reveal certain things and WHY HAS IT NOT BEEN TALKED ABOUT BEFORE?!? IT CAME OUT YESTERDAY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!!!
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This pic was a complete let-down. Tim Robbins and his crew are wanting to rescue Don Cheadle. Too bad it takes a year for them to get there. What ever happened to the back-up plan. Have to agree that the score did not fit at all. At least Red Planet with Kilmer should be able to learn from the mistakes this flick made.
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Good movie. People expect too much these days. It was a good story, the cast was great and the effects were believable. As far as the alien CGI goes, so what? Maybe the martians made it look that way on purpose?! Don't dwell!
Furthermore, regarding plot retreads, how many new stories are there in the world anyway before one begins to repeat oneself? Start at Shakespeare and you will see just how few plots there are once one removes all of the twists and turns. -
Granted, you are entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to take a shot at changing your mind. I can handle dumbshit tech errors - like Star Wars banking space craft and Star Trek's 'whooshing' ships. No big thing. But Mission to Mars set itself up to be judged by different criteria. To most of the people posting here, near-future space travel is not a fantasy concept. Kubrick understood this in 2001 and so he tried his best to be accurate in the ships, in the computers and in the people. More recently, Contact recognized a fundamental problem in most film sf - the fact that interstellar travel is not what it would seem and so they took a different approach.
M2M tried to go realistic without caring to do its homework. That doesn't bother you, that's fine. But to me, that's like making a movie about the Daytona 500 with writers who have never seen a race and have no clue about what goes on in a pit area. Yeah, Aunt Mabel from Podunk will enjoy drama and the excitement, but that doesn't mean the movie doesn't suck sewer water. It's like making a historical about Mozart and then hiring N'Sync to handle the music.
But leaving all the tech issues aside, I don't know how anyone could come out of that movie without feeling insulted by the smarmy music (oops, sad scene, music swells and swells!) and idiotic dialogue as well as the infantile relationships and moronic plot. It is all of a single cloth, an extremely shoddy, ugly and odiferous cloth. -
Yes, your pedestrian "insights" and opinions will forever remain confined to the never-never land of TalkBack. Abandon all hope of ever making the great leap. You haven't the right stuff; you're no DarthBond. You're a no one from nowhere. And you really should come up with some original subject lines, you overblown fuckwad. On the other hand, it makes it so damned easy to find you, maybe you should continue the booming-voice-from-the-pit stuff.
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Why is it that Harry just loves everything? Even crap? For crying out loud. "Mission To Mars" _was_ sort of neat to watch, in that "Titanic" overblown effects sort of way. But like "Titanic", the script was cliched cornbally crud. The love stories and "emotional" scenes are straight out of "Armageddon" in style and procedure. There were a few cool moments - usually around Don Cheadle - but you're not missing a darned thing if you don't see this movie (and not gaining much if you do).
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Mar 15, 2000 12:48:52 PM CST
Now this isa review I'd like to see go head to head with Ebert.
by devils halo
Now that would be fun and interesting... review this on 'At the Movies' so some blurb can be seen in the movie's one page advertising.
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The HELL are you doing with your career? From Shaweshank to THIS ??? Man, you must need a paycheck and a free feed off the honey wagon BAD !!! An added plus out of this sismic disaster, is that MOST film fans have now figured out that Brian DePalma is a sham. A "Joel Schumacher" who actually thinks he's good. Sorry, Blow Out was too hammy and had another one of his famous stupid endings. The thing that
pisses me off the most is that I'm
still waiting for a decently accurate space flick with modern special effects and a great story.
The wait continues...while your waiting, check out a little Canadian movie called "CUBE", a tasty small bite size Sci-Fi flick.--Syd.
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Sorry, Harry, but the movie totally blew. Once
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once her computer says "point of no return", that was it for me. I could no longer handle the cheese crap that Disney was forcing down my throat. The Alien was bad (understatement), but the holding hands with the alien and the COMPLETELY anticlimactic end were unexcusable.
I love my sci-fi, and I love my sci-fi crap. But this wasn't even bad enough to be sci-fi crap. -
...Must be a regional thing, because in my home town, Charlotte, the Carmike cinemas are wretched, horrible places which have not ever been updated with new chairs, projection equipment, or sound systems. These places are so bad that they cannot even hang their posters correctly. They always crinkle and fall halfway off inside the display. It's pathetic. AMC, on the other hand, almost always has great projection and sound. Regal and Consolidated, though, have the most consistent sound/picture/comfort levels.
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Mission to Mars sucked my will to live...It made me look FORWARD to the oral surgery I'm having on Saturday. I am a huge fan of Sinise, Cheadle, and Robbins and they all disappointed me greatly. By the way, I saw it opening night, in Times Square, packed theater, and everyone was LAUGHING! Not with Mr. DePalma, but AT HIM!
Pure excrement. end of story. -
Mar 15, 2000 1:42:20 PM CST
"Gort, what can he do? He's just a robot." "He can destroy this
by uncapie
Message to DePalma: Ramini did it better in "Army Of Darkness."
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Groan is all I can say for the torture I endured seeing this. I saw Lost in Space (tv), 2001, Space 1999, Cocoon, Dune, Apollo 13 and Marooned all chewed up to produce this. Who didn't laugh when June Lockhart shot Guy Williams a line and missed? Or Frank Poole walking in the centifuge. Or Alan Carter piloting a wrecked Eagle to the surface safely. No wait what about the Dune Sandworm or that NASA homage to exploding engines and leaks. And finally that jab at Close Encounters and a rip off of STNG's The Chase about DNA seeding. If I had known better I'd have watched all the originals with popcorn at home saved the money and not felt so bad. OBTW, what happened to Gary Sinise's hair? It didn't look like real hair or a Shatner turbo 2000. Lord, please let Red Planet work!
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This is a sad day indeed. A reviewer, Harry, with whom I've had the utmost respect for (The Iron Giant, Run Lola Run), has just singlehandedly destroyed any faith I've had in him as a critic. HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU ENJOY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS MOVIE HARRY? This film makes Event Horizon look like Blade Runner. Honestly Harry, sometimes you make us wonder if you are sucking up to the studios a bit too much. This film had absolutely no redeeming qualities. The only enjoyable aspect was the lingering hope that you were going to see each and every character ripped apart, limb by limb. And obviously that never happened. The exposition in the film was completely laughable, the special effects were "watchable", and the dialogue was completely ludicrous. Sorry Harry, I think that you have some explaining to do.....
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I liked the movie, but I admit that it had many problems. The alien was corney, and the score was horrid.
I think Harry hit it on the nail with his review.
I saw the movie in one of the new DLP theaters in Plano, TX and if the movie would have had a good score it would have been a great experience.
I would say that if you haven't seen it you probably should. It is definatly not the worst film in the world (that is reserved for Toys and Mission Impossible) and I am cringing at the thought of MI2 yikes.
If you can look past the bad parts you will find a movie that you can enjoy -
Herr Helmet Kopf: That was my subject line-- thanks for the props. ________ Antrodemus: I agree about the lame product placement. If they had the contract with M&M/Mars for a movie called "Mission To Mars," one would naturally expect the product to be Mars bars. I guess that would actually have been CLEVER... ________ I've taken the opportunity to repost my original review for those who may not have read it. I still stand by my opinion of the movie. Nothing in M2M had not been done more effectively in eariler movies like 2001, The Abyss, Close Encounters, etc... ________ "Holy crap! Just got back from the screening at SF State-- what the hell was that?! This is the biggest hack-job to excrete out of Hollywood since Supernova, and that was only a few WEEKS ago! I defy anyone who didn't like Pitch Black to see Mission To Mars and tell me this is better. Pitch Black was legendary filmmaking compared to this tripe. This movie was so cornball, so patronizing and ridiculous, I felt like I had to get out of a high-chair at the end of it. The film had everything I hate about Hollywood cash-outs: bad script, poor acting, over-the-top SFX, crappy Casio-style musical score, blatant product placement, false emotions, and a bumper crop of plot holes and devices. All the movie needed at the end was to have Gary Sinese wink into the camera at the end and an iris in on his face. DePalma is now officially on my shitlist. Sorry, Brian, but you'll never make another good movie. Three strikes-- M:I, Snake Eyes, and now M2M-- and you're out. Everyone: Tell people you hate to see this movie now, before it gets booed out of the theaters. Thanks for your time. ________ Don't pull your punches, Harry. I know that since you've become more popular (Farscape radio ads quote AICN), you've been euphoric on somewhat good movies, but less brutal on films that I'm sure you really didn't like. Admit it, M2M was a big rip-off of other better films and the wallets of movie-goers. ________ An easy way for me to tell measure the badness of a film is to use the "Stating The Obvious" meter, or STO for short. A typical example of STO is when, in M2M, Robbins fails to grasp the satelite, he SAYS to his crew that he failed to grasp the satelite-- OBVIOUSLY! All MST3K pictures are big on STO. To me, M2M had a VERY HIGH rate of STO, which makes it of very POOR QUALITY, which is not what I expect to come from big-budget Hollywood studios. ________ On retrospect, I've come up with an amazing perspective: 'Mission To Mars" is a FAMILY film. No, really. It's rated PG, the dialog is simple enough for a child to comprehend, none of the science could go over the heads of young minds, and the approach is basic enough to annoy anyone of a post-adolecent maturity level, but is just right for an 8-year-old. Am I making sense? Don't get me wrong-- M2M is a complete waste of time and money, but it could conceivably be meant for a space adventure that Mom and Dad could take Junior to see. Maybe the marketing should have been during Pokemon and not the Super Bowl... Any comments? ________ THE END
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Re ManOwar: Absolutely. In fact, I was MiSTing this flick as it was playing...*Spoilers Abound* 1) During the "Cydonia, Mars" establishing shot: "Meanwhile, on a lifeless, dead planet far away from Earth..." 2) When Robbins says, "Here-- Follow the liquid!" and tosses the bag printed largely with 'Dr Pepper': "But what FLAVOR is the liquid?!" 3) When raising US Flag on Mars surface, before rescuing a stranded astronaut: "First things first." 4) When Cheadle sneaks up behind Sinese: "Why does it smell like a homeless guy walked in here?" 4) When Cheadle says goodbye to the impulsive departure of Sinese: "Dude, can I have your strereo?" ...These all got laughs from the audience around me...
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Everyone is making comparisons between M2M and other films. No one has mentioned CONTACT - unless I missed it; and in that case I am sorry. But here goes... M2M echoes Event Horizon because it is a rescue adventure, but that is not enough to say they are alike. The Arthur C Clarke 2001,2010 series is alluded to here, because of the intrigue and mystery of space travel within out own solar system in the near future. I suppose you could even mention meteor/holocaust flicks like DEEP IMPACT. But what about CONTACT? The coded audio message from an Alien race? The puzzle behind learning our place in the universe from an advanced race? The chance to be catapulted across space to meet the little green men if you can only crack the code? Sound familiar? How obvious do you want it? Do you want a final scene were Gary Sinise is wisked away in his golden tic-tac shaped ship only to meet Jodie Foster on a beach in her silver wetsuit? Let's give credit where credit is due.
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yeah, the planet was cool... floating cool.... space cool, but take away those 5 minutes and the rest SUCKED. If I'd never seen Robbins or Sinise act before, I'd think they sucked too. I laughed out loud many times - most described above - but especialy at that q-tip headed alien. You cant just blame the score - tho it did . . . er, how do I describe it? . . . suck.
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Harry
You are way off base and out of your mind about MISSION TO MARS. Yes, Morricone's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA score was awful. But the film had no script! The performances were horrendous. Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise and Don Cheadle have never been worse. Case In Point: Look at the scene where Don Cheadle is in emotional distress after finding out Robbins kicked the bucket. His performance is so unbelievably bad that Sinise looked like he was about to burst out in laughter. And whose idea was it to make Cheadle look like Issace from the Love Boat after they find him? Connie Nielsen constantly speaks like she has marbles in her mouth. They should've casted Kim Delaney in that role and we might have understood the dialogue. The audience at the El Capitain howled at this film from nearly the beginning. When Armin Mueller Stahl exhales "THE SON OF A BITCH DID IT!", I thought I was in the middle of a Zucker Brothers film. Then again, all the performances in the film were delivered straight from the ROBERT EVANS SCHOOL OF ARTS. Brian DePalma has now joined John Carpenter in the WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU? department. The only thing DePalma can raise his head about is he made a modern day MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 classic. Although, MISSION TO MARS is no INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. This film just SUCKED ASS. -
is truly the most underrated filmmaker of the last quarter century. I didn't go to "Mission to Mars" for the story. I went to see DePalma show off his masterful technical precision. It doesn't matter what he directs because it'll always be received badly. "Scarface" etc. The only difference is now they're making money at the box office. Somewhere DePalma is smiling.
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To make a ridiculous comment about "The Untouchables" being one of the worst films ever is just stupid. It was terrific! Have you ever seen a van Dam or Adam Sandler film? Casualties of War and Carlito's Way are 2 very underrated Depalma films.
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if they had scrapped most of the score (HK is on target there) and scrapped most of the dialogue. This flick had three or four terrific scenes, which would qualify it as a great movie if it didn't have some terrible scenes all due to horrible dialogue. As a counterpoint consider 2001 (admittedly in a very different league). The last 45 minutes of 2001 had no dialogue. Take the last part of M2M and take out almost all of the dialogue after entering the "face" and the movie improves. Cut the barbecue to 5 minutes tops. AND CUT THE MUSIC! Did Morricone think he was scoring Once Uon a Time in Outer Space?
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Harry, this movie is just plain miserable. The acting really was "porno-bad" as someone put it. From the kid who played Cheadle's son trying to act sad but trying to hold back a smile, to Sinise's nasty little Dr. Seuss wince everytime he thought of his dead wife, to Robbins' insanely stupid depressurization (good riddance!), to Cheadle's idiotic impression of Grady from Sanford and Son after he'd been on Mars alone for a year, it was BAD BAD BAD! And you said the effects were good? Please, man be serious! The blue screen edges of the performers against the matted in land and skyscape jittered more than the Emperor's rhesus monkey eyes in Empire Strikes Back. The interior evolution scenes were cute, but nothing I haven't seen before done better in Hemo the Magnificent in 8th grade science class. Morricone's score sounded like some 15 year old got ahold of an "expensive" Casio keyboard and decided to make a movie score. Pipe organs when they're entering the white interior? Please! We were all waiting for Mike Teevee to jump out and explain WonkaVision(TM). "Open your mouth a little wider when you speak." Harry, I respect that you try hard to see some good in every movie you see. You've gotten me to enjoy movies that I otherwise would have ignored. But M2M just plain sucks, man.
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I thought this flick was really good, even though it was formulaic and had cheesy dialogue because, and I am going out on a wire here, I felt those defects added to the movie. What this movie is about is loneliness, using space as a metaphor for that emptiness, that isolation - similar to 2001 (though not even close to the scale of that incredible film). The opening scene (the bbq) gives these antequated, formulaic notions of camaradarie, of friendship and companionship, which works as a nice contradiction the final scene, when Sinise decides to go off on his own. The whole movie is about loneliness - Cheadle can't handle it and almost goes crazy; Sinise once had love and companionship but now is willing to accept that loneliness if it means the possibility of exploration; Robbins (this is a stretch, I know) goes off alone and dies, a metaphor, because he is so attached to his wife. The cheesy dialogue and stuff about Robbins dancing with his wife in zero gravity and Sinise and Robbins having a conversation that is basically "Sorry your wife died" and the birthday celebration and Sinise arriving alone (at the bbq) and leaving alone. . . all work toward that premise of companionship vs. solitude. The movie then has a buried theme of whether we are willing to accept that solitude (and the possibility of BETTERNESS - I couldn't think of a better word) or return to the SAFE world of friendship and love (the possibility of love), family, and barbecues. Even the evolution idea works this way: The leave a lonely, dying world to build up a world that will have these archaic concepts. There are some things that don't work (like Armin Mueller Stahl's character, he could have been written out and replaced with a line of dialogue) and some things that don't SEEM to work. But I think this a much deeper, profound even, film that is being widely misunderstood. Oh, and when the alien cries, it's because he's lonely. Far fetched, I know.
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I liked most of the movie, EVEN the alien. The space walk, air leak, etc, were fun and exciting...
BUT...
did we really need that scene with the cow getting hit by a car? I thought it was extraneous and did NOT further the plot..
I was disappointed by it. Cut the cow, leave the space stuff.
newfers -
This film was terrible. Nobody should waste their money to see it. Go see Ghost Dog instead. Much better film.
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While the score didnt do anything for me, I didnt hate it either. I think I was too engrossed in the film to notice. I like this movie quite a bit. The performances were fantastic (but would you expect any less from Sinise, Cheadle, and O'Connel?) the story was well written, and the film was well directed. I highly recomend this film. Its a lot of fun, and I cant think of a bad word to say about it.
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Come on Harry? What movie were you watching? I'll give you that about 15 minutes of the rescue teams flight to Mars was watchable, but the rest of it was just plain awful. What about the blatant product plugs? Dr. Pepper, M&M's, and Kawasaki? I rank this movie right up there with "Soldier" as some of the worst crap I've ever watched.
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Did anyone else find the lit birthday candle on the cupcake a bit hard to swallow?
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I know over a hundred people have already commented on their opinion of this 'movie', but after actually sitting through it, I believe I have earned the right to mouth off about it too. First off, Harry commented on the performances of Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise as 'fabulous as always'. what? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMOKING?!?!?! The fact that I KNOW both men are good actors just made their wooden and expressionless performances all the more painful. It was painfully obvious that they BOTH knew what a piece of shit they had gotten themselves involved in, and you could sense a restless anxiety in every line that was delivered!! The score, the SCORE. I think the point in which the score most blatantly pissed me off was when the ship was having the air sucked out of it, and the music that accompanied this supposedly tense scene was a single boring organ playing slow, ridiculously unfitting riffs. Oh, it made an already bad scene unbearable. Like someone else said above, I burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter at parts that were supposed to be serious. I am still in shock at how unbelievably RETARDED this movie is. That is a juvenile, simplistic word, but it perfectly sums up the wretch that this movie is. I don't think I've seen anyone else has mentioned the product placement yet- well FUCK, they use DRPEPPER to find the whole in their ship, and in a way, M and M's lead to the discovery of the origin of life on earth!!! I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall the logo of a gas company on the side of the Mars vehicle they travelled in. I mean, COME ON....Another thing- where was all the fanfare? Mankind was travelling to Mars for the first time EVER, and all we get to see to build up to this historic event was a BARBECUE? Where was the president's moving speech? where was the emotional bravado? And, for christ sakes!!! The space station was manned by some old guy and a couple labrats? For a movie which is supposed to maintain a level of scientific realism, it sure is hard to swallow the fact that such tecnological leaps will have occured within twenty years. The fact that Mars looked AMAZING and that the effects, while a little corny, were quite cool, only heightened the fact that the movie was such a pretentios waste of time. DePalma should hang his head in shame with this one. Okay, I think I've made my opinion on this wretched steaming pile of possum shit clear.
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As Gary Sinise is being submersed in "Abyss" fluid... "It's a cookbook! A cookbook!" ...They gotta revive the old crew to do this movie.
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I saw M2M last night with my friend. We were giving it the MST3K treatment from the first five minutes, and no one--NO ONE in the theater bothered to tell us to shut up. In fact, the whole audience was giggling at the movie. It was an insult to the intelligence of moviegoers everywhere (anyone remember Don Cheadle's exposition? The flashback with the M&Ms?). The CGI sucked. The score was schizophrenic. And Gary Sinise looked like he was in pain the entire movie. Can't say I blame him. The movie's whole ending was like those bad planetarium films you see in local museums, or a tacked-on movie to an EPCOT Center attraction. It was bad. BAD. BAD!!! Tim Robbins even sucked. How bad does a film have to be for Tim Robbins to suck in it? The only reason I didn't ask for my money back was that I had too much fun bashing the movie. AVOID THIS FILM...and if you choose to watch it, prepare to giggle uncontrollably.
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Harry I have lots of respect for you when it comes to your taste in movies... but what does your criteria for film score include? Kamen's 'Iron Giant' score was absolutely breathtaking, and 'Mission To Mars' was probably one of the best scores this year!!!!!!
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sometimes i believe we over think many of these movies. the score, the plot ok, fine. but how about how the movie affects us? i cried with the ending where 0ne man achieves ftl and gets to visit the parents......sometimes we think too much and need to return to the
'wow' of the movie experience..i want to believe................ -
Look, I've been a veritable space monkey for twenty-five years, and it takes a really horrible movie to overcome my natural inclination to like space mission films. But, M2M (not to mention last year's shit-fest, Armageddon) more than managed this unenviable task. So bad on so many levels. A few comments here and there...1) I wish nobody has said the Robbins/Reed Richards/FF bit because now I can't help thinking that if they should make such an inspired casting choice all I'll be able to think of is M2M and micro-meteorites. 2) 2001, The Abyss, Close Encounters, Dune, etc. etc. all completely jacked, but let's not forget Star Wars...when the Pathfinder was rolling around the canyons at the start of the film I kept waiting for Jawas to hijack it. 3) The myriad ludicrous plot holes and devices have already been well explored, so I'll just say ditto to most of them, 4) I knew we were in trouble when in the post-barbecue space-jock scene Sinise, Cheadle, and Robbins - all usually fine actors - seem to be trying to out-Basil Exposition each other; ("sorry you were the original commander but your wife died of cancer so now you you're forced to stay here but you're still the best damned space pilot this side of Anakin Skywalker") 5) No more internal combustion engines within twenty years? Sheah. 6) Put your helmet on, Gary, or you deserve to die. I felt about him the same way I felt about the husband stock-buyer guy in Boiler Room - if you're stupid enough to buy stocks over the phone, you deserve whatever misfortunes befall you. 7) Robbins giving his wife the necklace/making kissyface - ridiculous homage to Deadduck from Hot Shots...I was waiting for him to sign a life insurance policy too. 8) Crazy Don Cheadle/Tim Meadows a.k.a. Homer and Mr. Burns under the avalanche..."I have powers, political powers!" 9) The last twenty minutes of 2001/Close Encounters/Antz, complete with the recycling Indian tear...the most gut-bustingly unintentionally funny scene I can remember in some time. 10) Gary Sinise underwater? Why? Did Brian DePalma have a checklist of films he had to jack before the closing credits? Ugh. Why are we Science Fiction fans forced to endure such irredeemable tripe? Harry, you should have hammered this film. The silver lining behind this terrible movie is that everyone seems to agree it's a terrible movie. I have yet to understand how anybody could hype Magnolia, a long, unwieldy, pretentious, and banal movie clearly written by an immature, vainglorious huckster in dire need of an editor and a swift kick in the ass. And don't try to play me with the "You just didn't get it/You suck because you only like shallow movies" card either, because that dog just won't hunt in this case. But, I digress. M2M was godawful. I had heard as much, and I held out a slim hope that perhaps I'd like it anyway. Nada.
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Personal, i was greatly disapointed with this movie...and i had such high hopes. I like the Von Dannikin stuff...but....after a promising start, and some neat moments, it just went down hill. yes....MST3K treatment definatly! the Sandworm came...I was like "Sandworms attack ALL Rythmic Vibration, stay still!" and with the alien holding hands, i turned to my friend and began to sing "Koombya my lord..." didn't it seem they were going to sing? Btw, i liked the Organ music, but i felt like it should be the BGM behind a dungeon in a Final Fantasy game, not in a dramatic (in Theory) scene. I like the Ship, and if someone says that the rotating section on the ship was too 2010/B5, well, its been around in Sci-fi for a while as a standard way of generating Gravity.
Though Mars looked cool, and i'm sure it looks like that in reality, or at least someting close.
This is the first movie i've honestly felt that i could improve. there needed to be some REAL delemmas....maybe...NASA knew about the aliens on mars, and had sent the first team out to investigate it, and maybe one of the rescue team could of been there to interfear or have some dark motive...i don't know...it just needed something. It was just a buncha stuff that happend.
It was the kinda movie my parents would enjoy. They're not exactly the most Sophisticated movie goers.
BTW, i enjoyed the untouchables, and event horizon wasn't too bad, but this was defiantly down there on the list... -
You bunch of fat pasty dough boys best get off your asses whining(sic) about your fave or not fave flicks--'cause only a few of your number know anyting about film---Granted, Harry with some of his reviews(The Haunting!????!) seems to be as clueless as the rest of you, but at least he makes a stand for movies he likes(good or bad). I for one liked M2M as long as I suspended my disbelief(I am a highly educated person--spelling not withstanding (sic))! with a backgroung in bio/chemical science. If i could take it, so can you, bitching bastards! JUST CURIOUS? How many of you fan boys bitched about the "sound in space" during the STAR WARS movies
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In fact, aside from the end (more later), it would have been a rather good mini series on sci-fi channel or some thing like that. Like that they used micro meteors as a threat.
Could not figure out why the alien was there. I thought it was a girl. They tried way too hard to make it look like a "grey". That whole sequence would have been just as effective without the alien there at all. It did nothing aside from look gay and set up the Koom-by-yah hand holding scene.
In fact, the whole ending was the most complete copout I have ever seen. Its like they lost the last part of the script, and depalma said "lets just destract them with a lot of cgi.
And it did take a long time to build up to the actual space part. But it did give a good 3D feeling for the space scenes. There is no up or down in space and those scenes did convey that well. -
Harry, be sure that you don't come through Dallas on your way from Wichita Falls back to Austin, or I might ambush you, hog-tie you, and make you listen to "When Man is the Prey" for a couple of days. Then you might appreciate THIS Morricone score a lot better. Just buy the M2M CD and listen WITHOUT the movie! It's WONDERFUL. It sure sounds airy and spacelike to me. Different Strokes though.
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Mar 16, 2000 8:25:43 AM CST
Mission to Mars looks more like a cheap TV episode of The Outer
by renaud b
This movie is a big disappointment;I hope Red Planet is better and done more seriously,lets keep our fingers cross.
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Sorry, i HATE this guy so im doing my job here ruining his repuatation all over the net cause hes an egotistical asshole,this was printed by the force.net...
Episode II Script Fabrications
Wed, Mar 15, 00 02:08:02 PM EST
A website called Supershadow, run by Mickey Suttle, is claiming on the site and through the newsletter that Lucasfilm has given him an Episode II script in exchange for not badmouthing Lucas. Suprisingly, many of you have thought this might be true, and even one movie website has directed people there to see it.
This is all completely untrue.
This individual has not spoken with Lucasfilm. He has not interviewed George Lucas. He has no arrangement with Lucasfilm. He does not have the Episode II script. In fact, the Episode II script hasn't even been completed yet. If Lucasfilm doesn't even have it, why would they give it to any Star Wars fan (as if they would)?
You're probably asking, "Why hasn't Lucasfilm shut this guy down if he's lying?" Good question. Is this stuff grounds for getting a site shut down? No. If you shut down every site run by a person who posts fabrications on their site, then you'd shut down half the net.
You have been warned!
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There have billions and billions of chides at this feature of the plot. It makes perfect sense to me. You have to take into account the mindset of the aliens that created it. Imangine (if that is possible for you) that you are part of a race whose planet is dying. It is time to pack up the kids in the interstellar SUV and head for the _________Nebula in search of a second chance. But first, you throw some molecular matter into the ocean of that underacheiving sister planet that seems to need a swift kick in the ass to get its evolutionary act together. The last thing you do before you leave is create a ship for any of your descendants who may find their way to the cradle of thier creation - it would, after all, be nice to meet them. Here is the question: Would the animals that visted your Memorial Face Monument be worthy? Would they understand the concept of DNA and selective survival of the species in an ecosystem? Would they be the very cousins you created? Or would they be a hord of wayward space locusts who only want to devour everything in sight? The Face is a back door to the house of the race that created life on Earth - or so the movie would have us believe. It would not be smart to allow passage to the new world without some sort of test. The lives of three Astronauts are expendable when balanced with the stability of an entire world. You don't just let anyone come through your back door (and anyone who snickered at that last sentence shold stop seeing movies like this and stick to South Park).
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Richard C. Hoagland, founder of The Enterprise Mission, recipient of the Angstrom Medal, former science advisor to CBS News and Walter Cronkite, author of "The Monuments of Mars", co-creator of the "Pioneer Plaque", originator of the "Europa Proposal", and principal investigator of The Enterprise Mission... welcomes you to his official World Wide Web Site. Steady as she goes ... http://www.enterprisemission.com/
I liked this movie alot its a must buy DVD!
PS Nasa even had script approval on this movie!
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How about, it just plain sucks! See my review at moviegeek.homestead.com and understand.
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Just wanna tell you all that I was rotflmao from all the M2M talkback -- great distraction from work, thanks! oh and again: the damn movie sucked ass, so sorry Harry -- it wasn't the music.
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Just for future reference, but that little '(sic)' you keep tossing out is used to denote a recognized error when quoting SOMEONE ELSE. Most educated people don't need go out of their way to tell people that they're educated. Their actions demonstrate it.
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I saw M2M last night, and thought it was a huge waste of 2 hours. I admit that the Mars scenes were incredible, and that the fx team did their homework to make things look as realistic as possible. Too bad they didn't do the same amount of work on a) the crappy script, b) the weak acting, and c) just about everything they said about DNA. Any 7th grader with a biology textbook could tell you the difference between a couple of DNA base pairs, a gene, and a chromosome! Plus, I don't know too many people who memorize the entire human genetic sequence enough to recognize it at a glance, although I admit that by 2050 people may have nothing better to do. And should I even mention that alien? If those martians were so warm and fuzzy, how come they set up cyclones which rip people in half just because you try to radar the mountain? Wouldn't it have been easier (and more humane) just to NOT open the door into the face?
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Legitimizing the face killing the first people by saying its a test is no good. bullshit. a test of what? the face should have DETECTED that there were humans and let em hang out, not rip em to pieces, although that scene was probably the most fun to watch so im glad it was there since the movie was lame. but a test? well, we'll kill the first dudes, but then you answered our silly question so you next guys can come in...what? stupid..what would happen in the face let in a bunch of aardarks? would that be a threat? would the aardvarks have to die? silliness. This movie needed to SHOW MORE PEOPLE. we needed to see the nasa control room with hundreds of dudes milling about anxiously, i know thats in every movie like this contact etc., but it should be, there were like 12 people in this whole movie no good, we needed hundreds of people and then shots to see thousands of anxious civilians on the edge of their seat like the audience in hopes of rescuing the dudes. we needed a bit of epic-ness. i dont know, the movie wasnt THAT bad, mars was cool, the space shots were cool and the whole tim robbins scene was pretty freaked out to watch, the desperation was there, plus that was really nice effects....the alien...that was horrendous, and the whole ending was such a standard cliched ending, very disappointing.
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Mar 16, 2000 6:19:33 PM CST
SuperShadow Kicked Me Off His TalkBack for Saying He Was Full of
by smilin'jackruby
That is such a complete joke. Whoever he is, if it's not just some big collossal joke, is a major egomaniacal moron who has such a high opinion of himself that he thinks others might actually fall for his bullshit. Sad. The guy's an idiot.
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Mars *was* already a colony. The aliens came from that galaxy that they all flew to when Mars was destroyed, that was their home. When thier colony was going to be destroyed they decided to go home. That's also why they didn't explain how life originated on Mars, because it didn't.
Also, about the product placements. How often do you go through a day in real life without seeing any brand name logos. You never do. In real life you see logos everywhere. I don't mind brand name trademarks in movies. What I can't stand is when instead of a can of Coke, you see a plain white aluminum can with just the word COLA printed on it in black. That is not realistic.
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Nope, I'm not buying it, and here's why: Remember the number of ships leaving mars? That's not a colony, that's a whole planet's worth of aliens. Mars was a fully settled plant according to the brief glimpse we get of it, and anyways, why would they bother to seed the earth? It seems to me, that they'd be happy just to get the hell out of dodge, especially after they neglected to detect a big-ass-freak'n-asteroid that was heading right for their planet. Stupid aliens....
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You're argument is that because there were so many of them on Mars, it couuldn't have been a colony. Well there are a ton of people in America and America is a colony. The only people that are truly "from" America are the Native Americans. If it was a long-standing colony that had been there for a long time, it makes perfect sense for there to be that many of them there.
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Semi-spoilers!!! Did anybody else just wish that astronaut would die already? I mean, they dragged his death scene to what felt like half an hour. Everytime he'd tell them to leave him, and everytime they refused, I just let out a big groan. What nearly made me walk out of the theater was when the alien shed a little tear after playing back the destruction of Mars. Puhleeze!!! I could just picture the 3D designer getting those instructions from De Palma and going, "You want me to do WHAT?!!" Awful, cheesy, bad dialogue, bad score, no tension, dragged out conclusions, a worthless montage of images recapping the story at the end of the movie, and last but not least, they had to say "The End" at the end of the film so that people knew it was time to leave. I'm very disappointed to hear Harry liked it.
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Yeah, and did the sensitive alien shed a tear when the typhoon guardian ripped three people to mutilated pieces? I cant wait til we send a probe to europa, shove a camera into the surface and fucking fish swim by. life claws and scrapes to make it, wherever and however it can, the environments here on earth prove that, we are not alone, theres other dudes out there, right now.....they may not give a crap about us, maybe they havent found us, but theres shit going on out there. billions and billions of galaxies with billions of stars, all kinds of shit going on out there.....
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At that point, it wouldn't be a colony, because it was a long term settlement. Look at the British Commonwealth, these are no longer considered colonies, because they are capable of survining independently, but are still tied to the United Kingdom. If there is indeed a home system some many light years away, then it would seem to appear that Mars had become quite capable of surviving on it's own, and had for all extensive purposes, become it's own entity, hence not a colony. And I still think the aliens are retards for not detecting the asteroid BEFORE it hit their planet....morons. With all that technology, you think they could have found a Bruce Willis like alien, given him a group of rag-tag ruffians, and then sent blasting off to the red hot sounds of Aerosmith to blast that damn Asteroid apart, or maybe De Palma's waiting to rip off more movies in the prequel.
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All I was saying is that they originally came from somewhere else. That's all. That Mars was originally a colony. The colony may have developed into a totally autonomous civilization, but they didn't originate there. As far as them moving to Earth, remember that Mars pre-asteroid was similar to Earth, but the gravity is different and the aliens may not have been able to survive long-term on Earth. Maybe the reason that they seeded Earth is to keep their presence in this part of the Universe by keeping there genetic material here. In order for there to be a form of themselves that could be suited for Earth, they needed to start from scratch, hence evolution. Also, they did detect the asteroid, otherwise how would they have been able to organize and leave before it got there? If they didn't detect it it would have killed them all.
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It doesn't destroy my unshakable faith in the fact that these aliens are all nincompoops....let us say that they do come from another star system, and let us say that they are part of some extensive galactic civilization....what I imagine is this --- Alien scientist : "Hail oh galactic leader, we the inhabitants of settlement zoj34846 have detected an object approaching our planet which shall render it uninhabitable. Rather than determine whether or not we can stop it, we have decided to leave this planet after it hits, and return home, abandoning all the hard work and effort that went into making this planet the home to us that it is now." Galactic Leader : "Do you really think it wise to wait until after the explosion to leave? And what about that neighboring planet that we've been trying to get you to look into colonizing?" Alien scientist : "Well, we want to stick around for the fireworks, and then we plan on heading out after we stop by and seed life on that neighboring planet." Galactic Leader : "Why would you seed the planet?" Alien Scientist : "Uhm.....seems likes a good idea."
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Is this movie worse than that ID4 pile of crap? I'm never forgiving the film industry for that one...
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One of my "missions" was to get out of the theater as quickly as possible after viewing "Mission To Mars." It was one of the most excruciating filmgoing experiences I ever care to endure. People around me were laughing unintentionally throughout the film. I noticed firsthand the overdone musical score by the usually talented Morricone. The Seattle sneak preview I attended was packed, unfortunately, as people exited the theater, I overheard many negative reactions. One comment seemed to sum it up for the rest of us..."At least it was free."
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Though it almost goes against the very fiber of my being to dignify this piece of bantha poodoo with a response, I must point out that there is a severe problem with the seeding of earth scene. If you can muster up the strength of mind and heart, go back and watch the sequence where the alien DNA colonizes Earth. It goes in this order- Celocanth( the fish), Lipidiosaur, Alligator, Apatasuarus( not fucking brontosaurus which is not a real dinosaur), Then for some reason it evolves into an wooly mammoth(that should have turned into a present day elephant, which is still a slighlty-less-wooly mammoth), to a buffalo??????? WHAT THE FUCK???? Then we see little men running around throwing spears. SO HOW THE HELL DO THE PEOPLE FIGURE THAT THEY HAVE ANY RELATIONSHIP TO THE ALIENS??????? Shouldnt they have entered Bison DNA into the head??????
ALSO...What the hell was with that funky ass Evil Carnival Music? And why did Gary Sinises eyes look all wierd??????? -
Actually the Native Americans came from siberia across the Beringian strait, stupid.No One originally came from North America.And I believe that Mars was the homeworld not a colony because they would also have colonized Earth, and the moons of Jupiter.
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Oh my gosh, this movie, I truly believe, is an effort to see if people will mind if movies return to the lame late 50's sci-fi (ala Mystery Science Theater) style of cheeseness. There's everywhere to begin with, so I'll just say I couldn't believe that music happened. I can't believe it's possible that they released it in theaters instead of Sunday Evening Disney movie, but then "What's impossible? They're in a giant face on mars" AAARRRGH!
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(In most of it's "undesigned" formats) Is the DUMBEST theory that ever happened. Believe yourself to be a monkey all you want. If everyone who thinks they understand it based on the crap thrown at them at school, actually went to seminars, or conferences on the subject and payed attention to the BILLION contradictions and FURTHER BILLIONS of unexplained ASSumptions (which are immediately coined as facts by the ASSumer), one might also place their origins in a DESIGNED universe.
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Don't insult me damnit! What the hell is the matter with you? Why do you have to be insulting?!? I was having an adult, civilized conversation and you have to insult me? Your point about the Native Americans doesn't have any effect on my original point, that a large amount of people does not mean that those people originated where they are. Actually your point *helps* my point. If there are a ton of people in North America and *noone* is from North America, then it doesn't make any sense to say that, because there were so many of the aliens on Mars it *must* have been their place of origin. Therefore, it is perfectly beleivable for Mars to have been a colony for the aliens. If Mars wasn't a colony, then how the hell did they know where they were going when they flew off to that other galaxy? Do you really think that they just flew off towards that galaxy with no clue as to where they were going? Also, Gary Sinise's character said, as he was getting ready to fly off in the alien craft, "I'm going home". Home, where his ancestors are from, HOME!!!!! And they woudn't have necessarily colonized Earth, because they may not have been able to survive long-term on pre-historic Earth. Earth is similar to Mars, as it was in the movie before the asteroid, in some respects, but was by no means the same, like gravity for instance. Like I said maybe they had to seed the earth with their genetic material when they left in order to keep their presence in this part of the universe. If they couldn't survive longterm on Earth as they were, then they had to start from scratch, also known as evolution.
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Why is it not believable that they would listen to 80's music in the 2020's? Where I live there is like 5 radio stations that play oldies from the 50's and 60's, and that was like 40-50 years ago. In the 2020's, 1980's music will be like 40 years old. Makes perfect sense to me.
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Mar 18, 2000 10:11:14 AM CST
I think if Harry ever met Paul Anderson, he'd bitch slap him
by tall_boy
just cause whenever Harry mentions bad sci-fi flicks, he inevitably brings up SOLDIER and EVENT HORIZION. Those flicks came out like, what, 3 years ago? (personally, I kinda dug event horizon, just for its genre bending take of sci-fi horror. that and Lawerence Fishbourne is entertaining just eating dirt.)
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I was unlucky enough to catch the free college preview of this... film? I'm weary to use the term. The biggest problem witht this film (save for the "soundtrack") is the prolific amount of problems encountered at the absolute worst time. The sad thing is, the soundtrack, however terrible and repetitive it is, follows the movie to a tee. Hmm, hole in the ship with seconds until we must enter orbit? Cue the music. Oh, the ship blew up? Cue the music. Tim robbins tripped? Cue the music. Mind you, cueing the music meant rewinding the tape and starting it over again. If you want beautiful CGI, a great plot, or quality cinematics, try ANY OTHER MOVIE. If you want to waste $7, need a quiet room with hypnotically repetitive musak, or enjoy watching Ernest movies, this is the movie for you. Personally, I've blown my nose and gotten more entertainment.
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Anyone else notice that Don Cheadle looks exactly like Creeper the Hamburger Pimp from Dolemite about halfway thru the movie? It's uncanny! I could see him playing Creeper in a Dolemite flick...what the hell are they remaking shaft for, and putting out shit like Shaolin Dolemite. Someone needs to make a real Dolemite flick...Wicked Badass.
Zackie Chan out. -
I'm only posting this cause the Talk Back "Talk Back Post Organizer 2000-GZ" seems to be out of wack again, and there is the slight chance of somebody actually reading my post if it ends up on top. Anyway, I just wanted to say that, the other day, the woman who plays Gary Sinise's dead wife(I forgot her name,.. Kim Delany?) was on the Daily Show. When they showed the intro clip of her only scene in the movie, where she was on video, at some party, talking about "Life is not chaos, it's connection. There's aways a connection" or some crap, the audience started to laugh. I found this incedibly funny, as John Stewart still had to bring her out and interview her, as if it wasn't already evident that he and the audience thought the movie was crap.
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I was trying to enjoy the movie, and waiting for some big mystery ending that would make up for the rest of the movie, and then....absolutly nothing. I left the movie so confused, I wish I had never seen it in the first place! What was up with Gary Sinise? Did he die? Where did he go? This movie takes you through a long and boring plot and then leaves you hanging, wanting more.
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It has been a while since I have seen such a flaming pile of crap that this movie is. First off, whats with the super-shitty looking alien at the end of the movie..did the budget run out or what!! Also, did anyone notice that the alien spaceship looked just like the rebel insignia from Star Wars when it was taking off. Anyway, bad music throughout, and foreshadowing so bloody obvious you knew exactly what was going to happen right before it did and it was worse than you thought. How could DePalma screw this up so bad!!! I will chill out for now, however the only moderately so-so part was when Tim Robbins deep-sixed himself. Can you say "Insta-Freeze"? At least there won't be a sequel. One more thing, why did the aliens go to the ends of the universe when there was a suitable planet (Earth) practically next door?!?!!?
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It's the other way around! Did everyone flunk biology?
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Yeah, this movie was pretty stupid alright. If I were making a woman's DNA out of M&M's I'd have used a lot more green ones.
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Mar 21, 2000 11:18:35 AM CST
What the #@$#% is wrong with the Martians? (Minor Spoilers)
by shaihulud
Ok, I can buy the wonky science, the sound effects in space, etc. I will even admit that M2M was visually quite impressive, but what the hell is up with these aliens? They're supposedly so peaceful, so serene (to quote Bugs B.)yet the first thing they do when the wrong answer is given to their code is wreak havoc! Did they not stop to think that maybe, just maybe, there might be other beings than Terrans who might come to Mars? Isn't it enough that we got there, couldn't they cut us a little slack on the whole code thing? If i input the wrong PIN at my ATM, I am not summarily destroyed, it just asks again, and keeps asking til I get it right. Wouldn't that make more sense? And BTW, Don Cheadle's character, Luke, is awfully calm about meeting the creatures that destroyed his entire crew and left him to starve umpteen million miles from home...M2M is nothing more than a combination of Apollo 13, 2001:A Space Oddysey, and The Abyss witha dash of Marooned thrown in. It's not really a bad movie, just kinda pointless and baly concieved.
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What the hell about the alien look awful? Who saw a real alien to justify that its look bad?...
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Hate to say it, but Tim Robbins turns out to be one of the movie's biggest problems. Did his contract mandate that every non-verbal emotive change to his visage be documented with the minute hand of a stop watch??? And how the heck did he come up with that look to accompany the taking off of the helmet??? That was just flat out weird.
Also, the soundtrack had the distinct flavor of a Super Mario game when Robbins took his space walk looking for the leak. Bad, bad, bad...
Harry's right, though; there are definitely redeeming aspects to this film. Sci-fi fans shouldn't avoid it. -
This film sucks the ol' bag. Even Snake Eyes was better.
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1) If you were marooned on Mars for a year, wouldn't you have eaten the piece of birthday cake sitting there? 2) What happened to that giant worm hole all the Maritan ships flew into? 3) Fix the scale of the planets! That damn hologram they walk into was so out of scale it's hilarious. With a sun that size, the very first planet out should have been the size of a marble and hundreds of yards away. 4) How do those plants survive and grow inside a dark tent under the 200-degree daily temperature changes on Mars? 5) How did such an advanced race (a) not see the comet coming and (b) leave nothing behind what so ever of their civilization but a giant face that kills anything that comes near it. 6) Why is this called 'science fiction' when there was nothing resembling accurate science in it? 7) When will it stop hurting?
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Depalma likes to play at being other directors. He's tried being Hitchcock, he's tried being Antonioni. Now he's tried to remake Kubrik's 2001, except with no sense of style, no sense of pace, no suspense, and worst of all, no sense of majesty. The movie lumbers along like a travelogue. The structure of the movie begs for DRAMA, but Depalma opts for flat, flat emotion, flat dramatic impact, flat action. The film has no emotional core. Rather than build to a dramatic conclusion, it simply ends (the words THE END are your best clue that the movie has finished). If you insist on paying money to see this one, make sure you get a heavy Starbuck's fix. It's the only adrenaline rush you're going to get.
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Why did everybody hate the score? I was prepared for it to be really bad, but I liked it. Not Morricone's best, but still not bad. Did all you geeks also hate his scores for Once Upon a Time in the West, Days of Heaven, Untouchables??
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Man did you catch the props at the begining that was my favorite part like at first they didn't tell you the year and you saw Bud Beer in like fruit drink boxes and the cool looking cokes and sprit on the play house and then the electric car. Then they tell you it like 2020 or something. Othere then that the movie was ok. Oh did you all see the walking around the spinning ship just like in 2001.
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Harry,
I liked Mission to
Mars a lot until the
ending. I hated the
ending. I don't want
to give anything away
for those who haven't
seen it so here is
your warning. I am
about to reveal the
ending so if you
haven't seen this, get
the hell out of here.
The reason I didn't
like the ending was
because, I think the
alien should have
taken Sinise back to
Mars, and killed him
or used him as a slave
or something bad. It
was to much of a happy
ending for a Depalma
film. I was expecting
some sort of fight at
the end, just because
it was a Depalma film.
Maybe I was expecting
a glorified "How to
Serve Humans" episode
of the Twilight Zone.
I don't know. I do
know that the best
scene was the dancing
in space scene. Screw
the special effects,
that was a cool scene
for the Van Halen
homage alone. Long
live Van Halen.
Later,
Spidey -
I took it that the "alien" was simply supposed to be an interactive projection, like the projection of the planets, so it didn't bother me.
However, the dialogue in this film was atrocious!!!
It was like it was written for six your olds.
I can't believe there was no money in the budget to hire someone to fix it. -
ok, I only saw this movie 2 weeks ago. so, no one will read my comments. But by God, i will tell the untold story of M2M.
besides the overt story, it is also, subtextually, the story of cinema science fiction. Specifically, the optimistic school of movie SF.
Working from memory, and going from the beginning of the film:
-the opening party sequence: refers to APOLLO 13.
-on Mars, the little Rover POV and sound FX: R2D2 going thru the Tatooine desert into the Jawas turf (STAR WARS).
-all throughout; the centrifuge, the space helmets, the ship's computer voice, the white inside of the alien structure: 2001
-Gary Sinise getting submerged: THE ABYSS
-the rocket ship pendant: FLASH GORDON
-the alien: CE3K
There's more, memory fails me. I will get the LBX VHS when it comes out.
Also, why does Sinise have so much eyeliner on? To establish a visual connection to the big-eyed alien.
It wasn't the best movie ever. But dammit, it was good! -
Big mistake,it was a toss up between 3Kings and MTM guess what I chose the latter. Obviously I picked the proverbial short straw.
Although it started off ok, with the sandworm scene, its not until later on you wish it had dismembered the whole crew thus saving us the whole boringly protracted, stunningly uneventful, tiresome, badly paced and dodgy dialogued rescue mission. I kept hoping for the tempo of this gelatenous slug of a slow-motion picture to ignite, but alas no, it must have taken them a reel to fix a bloody hole!
Leaving aside the comedy alien, on leaving the cinema I felt as though I had done the mtm in real-time! Please Mr.De Palma go back to basics, redeem thyself! -
Nuff Said.
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I go to the cinema every week and am easily entertained. I'm rarely bored and love the 'deposit your brain at the door' features Hollywood so regularly churns out. The cheesy dialogue, the elaborate stunts, the cliched set pieces...I can't get enough. But why then, for the first time in years, did I feel ripped off when leaving the cinema? There just wasn't enough in the film. I thought it was going to build to a more interesting climax, but all I got was a crappy alien some toddler created on 'paintbrush'. And that score...PLEASE...I could hear dogs howling! On the whole, I can safely say I haven't had as much fun since my last migrain.
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Thanks for the review. I haven't seen the movie yet and a friend said it was really bad and wait for the video.
It's probably too late to catch it at the movies but now I will check out the video when it makes it.
Zman2000 -
Yeah, sure the film is not great. It is not even the best film I have seen TODAY. (I also saw "Love, Honour, and Obey", directed by Ray Burdis. See it when it arrives in America)
But the film does deserve the slating it has recieved. The music does ruin a lot of the film. During the air leak scene, the tension is bled from the film along with the craft's air supply. But the effects on Mars are WONDERFUL. How can a film with stuff like this be all that bad? In my opionion, (sad, outer space freak that I am) it isn't. -
I wish I had Read this Review Page Before I wasted my
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I thought this film would be good and, oh my, how wrong I was. I am even a big Brian DePalma fan but I can't recommend anything about this film. Everyone has mentioned the DNA scene and the cheese-ball Alien but what about the scene where the Tornado is only a few feet from the first team on Mars, yet EVERYONE just stands there and watches it! Have they ever heard of running for their lives? If I saw a tornado on Earth I would be heading in the opposite direction as fast as I could but these doughheads just stand there and look at how pretty it looks. Please...and these are supposed to be astronauts with PhDs? More like a couple of morons who work at the McDonald's drive thru...
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Harry how nuch are you being payed you fat lard bucket? That film was crap and there is nothing more to it. And stop making fun of Event Horizon and Soldier. I loved those films and Paul Anderson is a bit of a hero to me. The exorcist didnt scare my freinds but Event horizon had them crapping themselves. And soldier is a misunderstood masterpiece that will one day join ledgendery films like Blade Runner. Stop making fun of Paul Anderson. What has the guy done to you. Its not like he said "I am bored. I know. I will make a film that Harry hates just to tick him off". You dont know how hard it can be to make a film. Maybe something went wrong with the script. Give it a few years and event horizons will be the next Alien and Soldier the next Blade Runner. Go Paul.
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What hath Brian DePalma done? His latest dosen't even have the style that made even some of his lesser films bearable.Better luck next time!(And hey-just stick to Hitch,NOT Kubrick!!!!!)
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Mission to Mars is good family entertainment and I recommend it. The movie was uplifting, positive and fun to watch. The DVD is spectacular and goes behind the scenes to show people enjoying their work.
Critics criticize but do they ever produce anything? If you -
I saw M2M for the first time last night with the DVD on our 8 foot screen Kloss Novabeam, and both my husband and I agree...flawed, surely, but as a whole, better than I expected! I do not agree at all with the scathing review given here...especially the derogatory comments on Morricane's lovely score. We are soundtrack buffs, and usually can tell who composed a score during the first few bars, but never guessed who had done this. I really love his ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, and I think this is even better. I DETEST the usual dither of supposed "score" music by this-or-that group (such as THE CLUMPS) that have NOTHING to do with the film, while the REAL composer, David Newman in this case, don't even get a mention and the music ends up not being available at all, or only represented by a few tracks. Sometimes they do it right...TWISTER had the music AND a score..so did HEAVY METAL..they need to do this with all films that incorporate non-connected music on the score...one true misjustice was for THE RIGHT STUFF..the only soundtrack you will find for it is on a dual vinyl or CD with the music from NORTH AND SOUTH..and it won the Oscar for best score..that is pitiful. Back to the M2M score. I found it lovely and symphonic. I did not see this film on a big theatre screen, but on a pretty big home screen and it was breathtaking. I especially like the additional material (something that I am delighted they have done with DVDs that usually was done with Laserdisk sets..only thing I don't like are the printed media are much smaller than in a laser boxed set.) The face understated face in the mountain...the stark white interior and the Martian mourning the fate of the planet...I feel were lovely, and the cast was wonderful...what didn't I like? Well I felt it was a downer in the first part of the film, but more than made up for it later...let's see how THE RED PLANET turns out..for now I feel that, except for the original MARTIAN CHRONICLES mini-series with Rock Hudson which resides on my Beta tapes, this film was entertaining and did a good job of portraying the planet.
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