Red Planet Reviews

Humans will probably be walking on Mars before we next see a decent movie about it. From the faux-philosophical MISSION TO MARS to this overblown, ridiculously contrived drive-in flick, 2000's entries are no better than 1953's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS. It's 2057, and scientists still haven't found a way to silence hackneyed movie narrators. Commander Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss) informs us she's heading-up a Mars mission to learn why Earth-sent algae (planted to spew oxygen and establish an atmosphere) is mysteriously disappearing from the planet. She then introduces us to her shipmates, identifying each by their quirks ("Santen... a hothead, but a fine copilot") and generously saves the writers the trouble of establishing character through dialogue and action. (Bowman herself brazenly flirts, tolerates insubordination and generally sets back the cause of female leadership by 40 years.) After a solar flare nearly destroys the ship, she's left orbiting dead-stick while Santen the hothead (Benjamin Bratt), tech expert Gallagher (Val Kilmer), streetwise scientist Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), philosopher-scientist Chantillas (Terence Stamp) and obvious weasel Pettengill (Simon Baker) are stranded on Mars, where they're menaced by AMEE, an Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion robot that's stuck in military attack mode. The movie's best character, AMEE is a vaguely canine metallic skeleton with 360-degree everything: Like just-this-side-of-solid liquid metal, her every appendage swivels, turns, pivots and spins. In her too-few scenes, she crouches like a cat, stands upright like a human and makes Bruce Lee karate moves with Freddy Krueger fingers. We use these movie metaphors advisedly, since the film itself has the audacity to swipe from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, from the AMEE-eye view of the crew talking about switching her off to naming Moss's character after one of 2001's astronauts who, believe it or not, had 2001 times the personality of the cardboard cutouts here.