Mission to Mars Reviewed by Christian Pyle Directed by Brian De Palma Written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, and Graham Yost Starring Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, and Jerry O'Connell Grade: C+
"Mission to Mars" opens in 2020 as a group of astronauts gather for a barbecue to celebrate the upcoming jaunt to the red planet. Then we jump ahead thirteen months and scientist Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) is on Mars with an international team. They're out surveying when a sudden tornado attacks them with a supernatural malevolence. As the dust clears, a giant stone face is revealed beneath the Martian soil. Only Luke survives to crawl back to his base and send a brief message to mission control before contact is lost. At mission control on the World Space Station, Luke's pals Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) and Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) plan a rescue mission. A year later, their ship nears Mars with two more astronauts along: Woody's wife Terri Fisher (Connie Nielsen) and the inexperienced Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O'Connell). Things don't go quite as planned, however, and the rescuers find themselves in mortal danger before they even get to the planet.
Although it sounds like "'Saving Private Ryan' in space," "Mission to Mars" is an equal mixture of "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Apollo 13," "Armageddon," and "Contact." (For most of the movie, I was mentally naming the source of each scene and motif.) "Mars"' closest kin are "2001" and "Contact" because the central storyline is humanity encountering extraterrestrial life. Certainly "Mars" is nowhere close to the magnificence of "2001" (which ranks among the greatest movies ever made), but it compares favorably to "Contact." While "Contact" did a better job at making the translation of a message received from aliens seem believable ("Mars" rushes through the interpretation of its message), "Mars" has a better resolution. "Contact" built a lot of suspense for the meeting promised by the title, then let audiences down by having the alien and its world appear as projections from the protagonist's memory. As a character on "South Park" put it, "I waited two hours to see the alien, and it's her goddamn father!" "Mars" has a much stronger ending.
Produced by a collaboration of the screenwriting team of "Predator" and the author of "Speed," the script for "Mars" has plenty of thrills and chills, but character development occurs in awkward patches of down time that almost seem to have a blinking subtitle saying "character development." Jim misses his dead wife. Woody and Terri love each other. Phil is . . . uh . . . wow, they must have cut that scene.
The premise, of course, is nonsense. NASA would never undertake a rescue mission like this to save one astronaut who may already be dead. It would be too expensive and time-consuming to be feasible. (The rescue team arrives a year after they lost contact with Luke.) Scientifically-minded folks may also pick apart the movie's science, but to an English major like me most of it seemed realistic. (And in the movies it's not important to be real, only to seem real).
Bottom line: Semi-intelligent fun with sporadic action.
© 2000 Christian L. Pyle
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