Mission to Mars (2000)

If Brian De Palma directed Mission to Mars for 10-year-olds who've never seen a science fiction film, he can be credited for crafting a marginally successful adventure. Isolated moments in this film serve the highest purpose of its genre, inspiring a sense of wonder and awe in the context of a fascinating future (specifically, the year 2020). But because most of us have seen a lot of science fiction films, it's impossible to ignore this one's derivative plot, cardboard characters, and drearily dumb dialogue. Despite an awesome and painstakingly authentic display of cool technology and dazzling special effects, Mission to Mars is light years away from 2001: A Space Odyssey on the scale of human intelligence.

After dispensing with a few space-jockey clichés, the movie focuses on a Mars-bound rescue mission commanded by Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), whose team (Tim Robbins, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell) has been sent to retrieve the sole survivor (Don Cheadle) of a tragic Mars landing. During the sequence en route to Mars, De Palma's in his element with two suspenseful scenes (including a dramatic--albeit somewhat silly--space walk) that are technically impressive. But when this Mission gets to Mars, the movie grows increasingly unconvincing, finally arriving at an alien encounter that more closely resembles an astronomical CGI video game. But this is a $75 million Hollywood movie, and no amount of technical wizardry can lift the burden of a juvenile screenplay. Kudos to Sinise, his costars, and the special effects wizards for making the most of hoary material; shame on just about everyone else involved. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

why de-evolve???

So...the martians escape to earth in pods and become single-celled organisms? Isn't this like having to go through puberty again - on purpose? How believable is that? I feel sorry for the actors who must have been low on cash to take part in this movie. Very slow, not much plot, definitely not worth the money. Just watch the preview or read the back of the dvd case to find out everything you need to know, then go play cards with your kids. Anyone want my copy for free? December 19, 2008

Enjoyable SciFi

As far as science fiction is concerned I found this movie to be very entertaining. I don't look for rediculous contradictions to reality with SciFi. This is not reality, it's science fiction and should be treated as such.

I enjoyed this movie tremendously and would highly recommend it to fans of the genre. -kd5- November 19, 2008

Quality from start to finish

This is a very solid movie. The big question here is why this movie has so many one star reviews. I can see someone giving it 4 stars or even 3 stars if you don't "get" science fiction. If you're under 30, or your IQ is under 100, I can see a few two star reviews also. But one star? No way. There shouldn't be more that a few one star reviews because this movie is just too strong on too many levels.

If you look back at the one star reviews, you will see that many were written back in 2000 and 2001 when Amazon still allowed completely fictitious reviewers to post reviews. Anyone could log on and post 50 reviews of the same movie under 50 different fake names. And that's exactly what has happened here. If you read through the one star reviews you will see similar comments, similar comparisons to other movies, similar language and similar critical points, all of them BS by the way. One of the frequent points they make is to claim this is the worst movie ever made, but it isn't that class of movie at all-it's very well done even if it's not your type of movie.

You will also note that for many of the one star reviewers, this is the only thing they have ever reviewed on Amazon. They have reviewed no other movies at all, despite the fact that many seem to be film buffs and compare this movie to other movies. So where are their other reviews? I suspect that someone who was in some way connected to this movie got annoyed and went on a campaign to trash it.

This is a really good SF movie. I rate it 5 stars but if you're really cranky and don't like SF that much, knock it down to 3 stars. But under no circumstances is this a one star movie.


November 2, 2008

Low ratings must come from those who think Star Wars is SiFi

There is science fiction and then there is science fantasy. This is real science fiction. Its accurate, its obviously for the fan who watched and loved HBO's "From the earth to the moon" and it is realistic.
No shortcuts through the wormhole, warp space or other flights of fantasy. And its the only thing I've liked Tim Robbins in. October 28, 2008

the folks that dubbed this 1 star are.........uh, stupid!

Short and to the point: Great movie for the athiest/sci-fi crowd. I absolutely loved the movie. I would give my left testicle to be Gary Sinise in that movie. The one star people are more than likely hard core Christian morons. October 1, 2008

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