Mission to Mars
Brian de Palma (2000)
I remember seeing this movie in the cinema when it came out, I was very young, and I don’t remember watching it again many times after that. Mars is always a great setting for a science fiction movie. It has that aura around it, so far and mysterious yet so close and real. This movie unfortunately suffers the comparison with subsequent (or even earlier) efforts within the same genre.
Astronauts from the Mars One mission discover a strange structure while exploring the red planet. After an incident that leaves only one survivor, a second team, accompanied by recently widowed Jim McConnell, departs to Mars to mount a rescue mission.
The Bad: Some of the dialogue is really uninspired. The CGI at the end looks very dated now, which is a shame because the rest of the movie holds up pretty well, the story is a bit disappointing
The Good: I like the visuals, the set-pieces and the exteriors of Mars still look good.
My opinion: Definitely not my favorite Mars movie, but it’s not the worst either. It’s an average adventure in space that has some good moments, but it delivers too little in respect to its ambitions. I’d say it starts way better than it finishes. From the mystery with touches of cosmic horror at the beginning, we end up with a friendly-aliens-origin-of-humanity story-line that is resolved too quickly, and it doesn’t quite satisfy
ame 