'3 Black Chicks Review...'
Mission To Mars (2000) Rated PG; running time 113 minutes Genre: Science Fiction IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0183523 Official site: http://movies.go.com/m2m/ Written by: Jim Thomas (based on a story by Lowell Cannon) Directed by: Brian De Palma Starring: Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins, Jerry O'Connell, Kim Delaney
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamsmission.html
It was an odd coincidence that the first trailers for "Mission To Mars" came out right around the time when NASA's Mars Lunar module got lost in space. It was almost a joke (although at $165 million, not a very funny joke) at the time, that "Mission" had as much a chance to succeed as that failed space mission did. And though it took first place in its first weekend, a lot of reviewers said that, as a movie, it was a critical failure. What does Yours Truly say? Well, I reckon you'll have to read on to find out.
The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**): Beginning in the year 2020, Mission Commander Luke Goddard (Don Cheadle) prepares, with the support of friends and fellow astronauts Woody Blake (Tim Robbins), Woody's wife, Dr. Terri Fisher (Connie Nielsen), scientist Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O'Connell) and "stick jockey" Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), for an historic mission: the first manned mission from Earth to Mars. But when a "mysterious force" causes a disaster on Mars, stranding Luke and possibly his team, his support team sets off from Earth on a rescue mission that puts them in as much risk as those they're attempting to bring back.
The Upshot: Two things I noticed right off the bat in "Mission":
-Except for two specific pieces of music (the opening Zydeco piece, and the Van Halen "dance" number), the background music was truly awful. Whoever came up with the bright idea to have Cheesy Organ Music throbbing in the background, should be taken out behind the woodshed and severely scolded - just before they're dropkicked right out of the movie business.
-If this movie is any indication, future space missions will be commercial-laden: "product placement" takes on a whole new meaning when your brand name is written in great big letters along the side of a rocketship.
Ok, actually, make that three things I noticed right off: the third being the genuine "closeness" I perceived between the characters. I know I said pretty much the same thing in my "What Planet Are You From?" review, but the feeling of real camaraderie struck me even harder here. Struck me so hard, in fact, it moved me to tears at one point (you'll know the point when you see the movie).
There have been real-world scientists, along with not a few laymen and movie critics, who've taken "Mission" to task for where it went wrong; but there have been just as many who've praised it for where the movie got the science, and the story, right. I fall squarely in the latter camp. I don't know from physics, or whether an orbit around Mars should be asynchronous or bsynchronous; but I do know a well-told, heartfelt story when I see one, and that's what I saw during the 113 minutes of "Mission". True, it had its flaws; it often got thick on the melodrama, and Kim Delaney (playing Jim's dead wife Maggie, via home movies) proved herself once again to be a fifth wheel in the presence of much greater actors. And did I mention that godawful music?
But I easily looked past its flaws and saw the essential human story it told. I found the tight-knit group of characters entirely believable, got a warm 'n fuzzy feeling from watching their interactions, and was simply blinded - in a good way - by the science of it all. The special effects were brilliant, but not so-much-so that they overwhelmed the story itself. And I still can't speak of the spacewalk scene without feeling a lump in my throat.
After his terrible miscalculation in "Reindeer Games", I was heartened to see Sinise bounce back so strongly here. Cheadle's performance was likewise strong [and you know I gotta feature him in the "Black Factor" below], O'Connell was humorous but not stupidly so, and though Nielsen suffered by comparison in her "alone" scenes, her chemistry with Robbins was right on the money; they made a great couple, and I'd love to see them act in something together again.
Will we Earthers really reach Mars by 2020? Well, we missed the "Space 1999" deadline already, and a lot of "futuristic" movies and TV series of the past will soon be shown to have been a little more optimistic of the advancement of the human race than we've proven ourselves to be capable of thus far. But the question for me is not so much "Will we get out there?", or even "Who else will we find when we do?" - but instead, "What will we do about each other *here*?"
The "Black Factor" [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith]: "Mission Commander Luke Goddard, played by Don Cheadle". Man, do I love typing that. A powerful actor whose "quietness" almost - but not quite - masks his incredible acting abilities (c.f. "Devil In A Blue Dress"), he succeeded where Angela Bassett failed in the dreadful "Supernova" earlier this year: neither making his "Blackness" pronounced, nor putting it away in shame, Cheadle, through Luke, built on the legacy of a very few Black actors who've slowly chipped away at that old stereotype (began with "Logan's Run", I believe; correct me if I'm wrong) that the Black "race" won't survive in any meaningful way, into the future. Cheadle joins a chosen few in making space, on the Silver Screen, "safe" for Black Folk again.
Bammer's Bottom Line: While no "The Right Stuff", "Mission" had its heart in the right place. And the way I see it, "heart" is what propelled it well out of the lesser orbit of that other dramatic space flick of 2000...uh, y'all know the one I mean. I just can't bring myself to type the name of that most dreadful collection of frames of moving images running swiftly together which would normally be called "film" but could not by any stretch of the imagination be honoured with such a label, so soon after I've eaten.
"Mission To Mars" (rating: greenlight): This flick did what even the noteworthy "The Green Mile" couldn't do: it made me cry. And for all its flaws, that goes a long way towards proving its worth, in my book.
3 Black Chicks...Movie Reviews With Flava! /~\ Rose "Bams" Cooper /','\ 3BlackChicks Enterprises /','`'\ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 /',',','/`, EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com ICQ: 7760005 `~-._'c / http://www.3blackchicks.com/ `\ ( http://www.dealpilot.com/?partner=1987 /====\
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