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Howdy,
all. As I continue to feverishly work on a top secret project, that
will propel 3B
Theater into
B-Movie Website Infamy, my good buddy Bill has gladly stepped up,
well, actually, he sort of tripped, to fill in for me this week with
his second Earth-shattering guest review. A friendly piece of
advice. Read his review in your best William Shatner voice. It will
only add to the hilarity. Enjoy.
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Sometimes
bad movies happen to good people. I don’t mean actors or
directors, or even writers. I mean viewers. For instance, I
accidentally watched part of Exit
Wounds the other
night. It wasn’t that I was expecting great things from Steven
Segal, it was just that I was too lazy to turn off the television
before it was too late. 10 minutes of my life were, like that, gone
forever.
I
survived this encounter, having learned, and relearned the lesson
countless times before. It was just a week before when I sat through
all of Red Planet,
the 1999 sci-fi (pronounced
"skiffy"),
flick, which should not be confused with Mission
to Mars, another
1999 sci-fi flick.
Red
Planet is about a
bunch of really cool astronauts who go to Mars, to try to find hope
for an ecologically battered Earth. Mission
to Mars is about
something else. I think it’s a remake of Dune,
because there was a lot of sand in the preview I saw. But that’s
not important right now.
Val
Kilmer, (Batman in Batman
III), Carrie Anne
Moss (Trinity in Matrix),
Terrance Stamp (General Zod in Superman
II), Simon Baker
(nothing we’ve heard of), Benjamin Bratt (Julia Roberts’ ex),
and Tom "The Sarge!" Sizemore are sent to Mars, and all of
humanity is left behind to wonder in which order they’ll die.
Poor
Tom. You just know he’s going to get it. You know from the moment
you see his name in the credits, and recognize his face, that death
is a major part of the plot.
Actually,
General Zod kicks off first, because he’s old and he’s searching
for God. Two traits to avoid, should you find yourself living in a
script.
(Of course, we already know to avoid your Last Day on the Force, and
don’t ask your High School Sweetheart to Marry you the Night
Before You Ship Out.)
Julia
Roberts’ ex-boyfriend, Benjamin Bratt gets it next, in the coolest
plunging-off-a-Martian-cliff visual I’ve ever witnessed. But then
again, I still haven’t seen Mission
to Mars, so
it’s quite possible they did it better.
But
that’s not important right now, as we’re down to 3 plucky
astronauts on the ground and one back on the ship, and the tension
is mounting.
I
should point out that all of the deaths could have been avoided had
the ship not been hit by an unexpected solar flare. Well, I
shouldn’t say completely unexpected, but it did seem to catch the
crew by surprise. I imagine the guy at Houston Control who’s
supposed to watch for that sort of thing, sneezed at precisely the
wrong moment, and missed the flare as it passed the Earth and headed
straight for Mars.
Of
course, maybe had the ship been piloted by someone other than a
distant cousin of Dave Bowman, of 2001
fame, maybe their luck would have been a little better. And maybe,
just maybe, had the ship’s computer been given a different
personality, things would have turned out better. Say, maybe Gypsy
instead of a Majel Barrett wanna-be.
The
aforementioned flare knocks out most of the power to the ship, and
forces the crew, sans Carrie Anne, to head for the ominous Red
Planet.
The
designer of the escape pod does deserve some credit, as someone in
the production team must have read an old copy of Discover magazine
or something. The pod falls to ground, and giant airbags deploy to
slow the fall, and cushion the landing. And we see every thrilling
moment of that descent, every heartstopping bounce. All 1,208 of
them. It takes so long because the pod has the rather bad luck to
land near one of the famed Martian canyons, which, as you remember
from science class, make the Grand Canyon look positively shallow.
But,
perhaps I should back up even further. Before they even reach orbit,
we know this mission isn’t going to end well, when Val Kilmer’s
name appears on the screen. But I kid. It’s actually Val’s
special robot friend, conveniently programmed by the Special Forces
that’s the tip off. The robot is named A.M.E.E., for reasons
undisclosed, or at least, unnoticed by me.
(My wife suggested a better name would have been A.L.P.D., but
we’ll let you figure that one out.)
Why
this mission to Mars needs a killer droid is never explained, but
I’m sure it’s just as good as the explanation behind the vulcan
cannons mounted on the moon buggies in Armageddon.
Alas,
there’s no Steve Buscemi here to save us with his delightful,
trademark creepiness, just Val Kilmer doing what he does best:
gasping for air and choking on the scenery of a barren world. Oh,
and his character runs out of oxygen too.
Val’s
character does show some ingenious McGyveresque moves (MacGyverish?
McGyvering? Just what is the proper form of the term?),
but not until it’s too late for everyone but himself. And yes,
there are plenty of computer generated bugs running around, for all
you fans of nematodes, and other corn pests. Can’t have a Sciffy
flick without computer generated things anymore. Almost makes one
nostalgic for hubcaps dangling from strings, or large limestone
monsters shaped like Gumby.
How
does Red Planet
end?
(Yes, it does end…eventually.)
Without giving away the details of how Val launches himself into
space by blowing up the killer droid, and stealing its battery to
jump start a Russian probe, only to run out of air and need Carrie
Ann to launch herself out to grab his lifeless body and tow it back
into the ship, and kiss him back to life, I can say that it has a
happy ending.
This
is a movie about hope, the human spirit, and love, and the need for
environmental responsibility and redundant safety equipment. It’s
about the promise of the future, and how many questions remain on
our celestial neighbors, and Carrie Ann Moss taking a longer than
necessary shower, while millions die of thirst back on Earth. It’s
about family, and faith, and the quest for knowledge. But most of
all, Red Planet
is about an hour and a half too long.
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