** spoiler warning **
I've always heard this was a stinker, but as a sci-fi fan couldn't help car-wreck curiosity. Red Planet is one of those movies so poorly sewn together, the subtext is evident while watching, as if the screenwriters did a nude scene.
Red Planet is a "deal movie," crossed with a feminist take on white males as the problem-population-at-millennium. The movie opens with clunky narration from mission leader Carrie-Anne Moss -- who is she talking to? -- sound techs should avoid cosmic echo when the actor speaks colloquially, as in "we were kidding ourselves" and "gonna."
It seems Earth is dying of pollution etc., so a motley crew goes to Mars to check on automated terraforming. Behind the green veil, the movie is an overlong, indecisive PSA on sexual harassment. Tom Sizemore jokes about being king of Mars and making Moss queen, his repartee landing like a boulder. Then again, confining five men with the statuesque Moss is a moral hazard. Val Kilmer corners her as she exits the shower, then fails to pull the trigger; later, facing mortality, he says (by radio) he should've kissed her, and she quietly agrees. No wonder the human race is dying.
[Edit, 11 Nov. 2017: Apparently, I was onto something. The script's coy confusion reflects the hypocrisy of a culture that accepts sexual harassment and rape.]
The five guys are shipwrecked on the ginger orb, soon to be stalked by AMEE (pronounced "Amy"), a homicidal robot evoking the days of The Black Hole and Saturn 3 for viewers of a certain age. On the mothership, as it were, Ms. Moss spends much of the movie thinking her misbehaving boys are dead, and increasingly, she's correct. Terence Stamp (as a scientist, nevertheless spiritual) is the first to cash his check. Future Mentalist Simon Baker, a weasel here, responds to feelings of inadequacy by knocking Benjamin Bratt off a cliff. Later, Baker's character himself succumbs to guilt-related misadventure.
I mentioned it's a deal movie: Red Planet seems to originate in an alternate universe where Hollywood is autocratic socialist state. In alt-Hollywood, no one wants to work with Val Kilmer or Tom Sizemore, but as Party Members they're entitled to stardom until retirement. Thus, this perfunctory (Red-themed) sci-fi with younger stars paying dues, and a Brit (Stamp) playing Latin for global buzz.
Sizemore is supposed to be the scientist blind-to-the-dangers, so he gets killed, when a new lifeform uses his body as a hatchery. Unfortunately, Kilmer's character survives the end of the film. Mars now has oxygen, but it's infested with carnivorous CGI locusts, which means someone was readying Red Planet 2.
Fortunately, there are better films set on the fourth planet, including Robinson Crusoe on Mars and The Last Days on Mars. Even Mission to Mars (also from 2000) is watchable. (I haven't yet seen John Carter or The Martian.)
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| best sequence: landing on Mars, with air bags |
Red Planet is a "deal movie," crossed with a feminist take on white males as the problem-population-at-millennium. The movie opens with clunky narration from mission leader Carrie-Anne Moss -- who is she talking to? -- sound techs should avoid cosmic echo when the actor speaks colloquially, as in "we were kidding ourselves" and "gonna."
It seems Earth is dying of pollution etc., so a motley crew goes to Mars to check on automated terraforming. Behind the green veil, the movie is an overlong, indecisive PSA on sexual harassment. Tom Sizemore jokes about being king of Mars and making Moss queen, his repartee landing like a boulder. Then again, confining five men with the statuesque Moss is a moral hazard. Val Kilmer corners her as she exits the shower, then fails to pull the trigger; later, facing mortality, he says (by radio) he should've kissed her, and she quietly agrees. No wonder the human race is dying.
[Edit, 11 Nov. 2017: Apparently, I was onto something. The script's coy confusion reflects the hypocrisy of a culture that accepts sexual harassment and rape.]
The five guys are shipwrecked on the ginger orb, soon to be stalked by AMEE (pronounced "Amy"), a homicidal robot evoking the days of The Black Hole and Saturn 3 for viewers of a certain age. On the mothership, as it were, Ms. Moss spends much of the movie thinking her misbehaving boys are dead, and increasingly, she's correct. Terence Stamp (as a scientist, nevertheless spiritual) is the first to cash his check. Future Mentalist Simon Baker, a weasel here, responds to feelings of inadequacy by knocking Benjamin Bratt off a cliff. Later, Baker's character himself succumbs to guilt-related misadventure.
I mentioned it's a deal movie: Red Planet seems to originate in an alternate universe where Hollywood is autocratic socialist state. In alt-Hollywood, no one wants to work with Val Kilmer or Tom Sizemore, but as Party Members they're entitled to stardom until retirement. Thus, this perfunctory (Red-themed) sci-fi with younger stars paying dues, and a Brit (Stamp) playing Latin for global buzz.
Sizemore is supposed to be the scientist blind-to-the-dangers, so he gets killed, when a new lifeform uses his body as a hatchery. Unfortunately, Kilmer's character survives the end of the film. Mars now has oxygen, but it's infested with carnivorous CGI locusts, which means someone was readying Red Planet 2.
Fortunately, there are better films set on the fourth planet, including Robinson Crusoe on Mars and The Last Days on Mars. Even Mission to Mars (also from 2000) is watchable. (I haven't yet seen John Carter or The Martian.)
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