 |
 |
|
Another movie I was looking forward
to has now passed before my eyes and into memory. Unfortunately it wasn't
that good. Mission to Mars tries to be an epic space opera, but
falls short on many levels.
There are a huge quantity of parallels to be made between this movie and 2001: A Space Oddsey, and none of them really work. The ship they travel to Mars in is a lot like Discovery. The object on Mars is sort of Monolith like, and makes weird sounds, and several more. One of my friends heard that some of these were a deliberate homage to Kubrick. Unfortunately for Mission, 2001 is such a masterpiece, that it should never be copied like this. The movie's flow is also strangely odd. At close to three hours, you'd think that it would drag on. However, much like Titanic, you don't really notice the passage of time. This is a bad thing in the movie's context, as it completely lacks the empty, lonely passage of time that 2001 has. Six months of space travel dissappear in a flash. It affects the whole movie's flow, as events just seem to happen, rather than move through time. The dialog also comes across as very contrived and cheesy in some of the scenes. When Tim Robbin's character has missed the resupply module, the whole scene's dialog comes across as so contrived. Not to mention that Tim's death in the scene is just lame. Much like Jurassic Park, Mission tries to live on it's special effects. They're great, but they can't carry a plot by themselves, and the story does little to help. Gary Sinise gives a good performance, and Tim Robbins is good, save for his last scene. |
|
|
|
On the CyberKender scale, Mission
to Mars is only worth paying $4.00 to go see.
|