MISSION TO MARS (2000)
Updated: May 18, 2023
Brian De Palma's Space Adventure is No-Go for Launch
Grade: D+
(**Spoiler Alert!!**)
Mission to Mars illustrates how even the best-looking movies don't always hold up on repeat viewings. Upon first seeing the film in its entirety, this reviewer was blown away by its sense of wonder and magnificent score by the great Ennio Morricone. I did not agree with the general consensus that it was not very good. But ten years later, especially in the wake of other exciting space adventures like Gravity (2013) and Interstellar (2014), the flaws in Mission to Mars are far more obvious. It contains only a handful of exciting or genuinely emotional moments, and they are not enough to sustain it.
The film begins promisingly by introducing a group of astronaut friends, one of whom, Luke Graham (Don Cheadle), is set to partake in the first manned mission to Mars. Shortly after arriving, the crew investigates a mysterious rock formation and encounters a violent force that kills everyone but Luke. In the World Space Station in Earth orbit, Luke's friends Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise, in his second astronaut role after 1995's Apollo 13), Woody Blake (Tim Robbins), Woody's wife Terri (Connie Nielsen), and Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O'Connell) prepare to embark on the Mars II mission to rescue Luke and solve the mystery of what happened on the Martian surface.
Directed by Brian De Palma, the problems Mission to Mars could be pinned down to the uneven story and tone. It seems to be an attempt to combine old-school sci-fi adventure with the slow pace and realism of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but the two styles do not mesh. In 2001, the characters were largely stoic and devoid of emotion (aside, ironically, from the computer HAL 9000). The same, unfortunately, can also be said for the characters throughout most of this movie. Much time is also spent discussing the technical aspects of space travel; a little too much time, in fact, which threatens to put viewers off of watching it.
There is an exciting scene early on, when the Mars I mission first encounters the strange force. A huge, seemingly sentient cyclone of red dust crops out of the top of the rock formation like a snake, sucking up two of the astronauts. Until things become deadly, however, no one reacts with real awe or fear. This might be an attempt at realism, since astronauts are trained to keep their emotions in check during emergencies. But in a Hollywood production like this, where the characters are supposed to reflect the emotions of the audience, it doesn't work.
What's worse, this scene is practically the movie's peak. It creates a sense of real danger and fantasy that is either absent or muted throughout the rest of the movie. Take a later scene where the Mars II ship approaches the orbit of Mars and a small meteor penetrates the hull. As the crew floats around trying to solve the problem, the danger does not feel very strong. It is a small hole, meaning depressurization is slow, and Ennio Morricone's music doesn't match the direness of the situation. And once again, the characters play it too cool for us to really worry about them. Apollo 13 circumvented this problem by making the music intense, showing serious damage to the craft and keeping it in a confined space. Here, the music isn't suspenseful enough, there is only minor damage to the ship (that we see so far), and the interior of the ship is vast. It is just not that exciting; even the ship's computer voice sounds bored.
Occasionally there are some moments of genuine emotion, much of it centered around the memory of Jim's late wife, Maggie (Kim Delaney). While looking at a video about their life together, Gary Sinise does a good job conveying the pain of missing a loved one. Similarly, Terri's scream of horror when Woody sacrifices himself in Mars's orbit to save the rest of the crew is gut-wrenching. These scenes help the movie to survive, but not to live.
The finale of Mission to Mars, which astonished this viewer upon first seeing it, still has a few impressive bits. After entering the rock formation, which turns out to be the fabled Giant Face, three of the astronauts behold a hologram of the solar system and one of Mars's previous inhabitants. Then there is a final goodbye between them as Jim decides to stay behind and let a ship take him to a distant galaxy, where the ancient Martians have found a new home. But this sequence is still tarnished both by the fact that it cannot match the standards set by the cyclone scene, and that it demonstrates what the rest of the movie was sorely lacking. It is a wondrous climax, but getting there was a long, hard slog.
It's hard to say what exactly went wrong with Mission to Mars. Maybe the three screenwriters each had different styles they wanted to apply to the movie, or maybe director De Palma was always determined to combine adventurous sci-fi with the "hard" sci-fi of 2001. In any case, the movie is too slow-paced and unemotional to be involving, yet it has seeds of an intriguing and exciting adventure. But when it comes to movies like this, you have to go one way or the other or you risk boring the audience, like they do with Mission to Mars.
One final note: no review about Mission to Mars is complete without discussing the Big Twist in the movie's climax, wherein it is revealed that the ancient Martians planted the seeds for life on Earth. Leonard Maltin called this a "spell-it-all-out climax for those who still don't get 2001."* Another problem, though, is the fact that it only takes up a small part of the narrative and doesn't match the overall tone. By contrast, the origin of man was established in the early scenes of 2001 and permeated the remainder of the film. If the rest of Mission to Mars had been more adventurous, and had this story thread played a greater part in the overall narrative, the similarities would have been even more obvious.
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenplay: Jim Thomas, John Thomas, Graham Yost (Based upon the Walt Disney ride)
Producer: Tom Jacobson
Cast: Gary Sinise (Jim McConnell), Tim Robbins (Woody Blake), Don Cheadle (Luke Graham), Connie Nielsen (Terri Fisher), Jerry O'Connell (Phil Ohlmyer), Kim Delaney (Maggie McConnell), Peter Outerbridge (Sergei Kirov), Kavan Smith (Nicholas Willis)
* Quote from Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, 2015 ed.
Rated: PG (for sci-fi violence and mild language)
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