|
RED PLANET Send This Review to a Friend
Yet another space film, "Red Planet" succeeds in keeping the action moving, but the futuristic mission to Mars plot, set in the year 2050, is laborious and the premise is hard to take, no matter how much we worry about screwing up our environment. By then, earth is in its death throes and there's one solution, figuring out how to colonize Mars. To advance the project, off goes a contingent of astronauts. Needless to say, they are in for trouble.
With the film conceived and cast with up-to-date political correctness, the commander is a woman, played by Carrie-Ann Moss with the required self-confidence and earnestness. You won't be too surprised to learn that there's chemistry between the commander and a crewman played by Val Kilmer. Nothing really happens, but there he is when she walks naked out of a shower (the spaceship is well-equipped.) They almost kiss.
What would a space adventure be without a gimmick? In this case it's a robot that can turn lethal and go on search and destroy missions. When we're introduced to the mechanical creature it is a foregone conclusion that the robot will wreak havoc at some point. Others in the cast are Tom Sizemore, Benjamin Bratt, Simon Baker and Terence Stamp. This isn't the sort of mission from which everyone returns.
The look of it all is fine, and the film is saturated with special effects. But one hopes that by 2050 there'll be better screenplays than this one by Chuck Pfarrer and Jonathan Lemkin. At least director Antony Hoffman and his production team make sure there's enough for us to keep our eyes on. A Warner Bros. release.
|