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Red Planet | Year: 2000 Directed: - Antony Hoffman - Anthony Hoffman Actors/Actresses: - Carrie Ann Moss - Carrie Anne Moss - Terence Stamp - Tom Sizemore - Val Kilmer Get yourself to Mars Val Kilmer plays Gallagher, the nuts and bolts man on the first manned mission to Mars in "Red Planet". With over-population and pollution threatening the future of the human race by the middle of the 21st century, NASA turns to Mars as a possible avenue for colonization. Before the mission reaches Mars, a temporary habitat is set up and lakes of algae are sprinkled across the surface with the hope of converting the Martian carbon-dioxide atmosphere into oxygen. Led by the ultra-competent Commander Bowman (Carrie Moss), and including a philospoher (Terrence Stamp), the hot-shot (Ben Bratt), the existentialist geneticist (Tom Sizemore) and a terra-former named Pettengill (Simon Baker) whose selfishness borders on paranoia. Among these loft types, Kilmer's unexciting job earns him the title of "janitor", the mission reaches Mars after an uneventful trip only to encounter near catastrophe after reaching orbit. A gamma-energy burst cripples the ship and starts a fire that nearly dooms it, but also forces the crew - sans Moss - to make landfall (Mars-fall, I guess) before the team is ready. With the mothership - a technological if unproven marvel - barely able to do more than either fall-out of orbit or head for home, the Mars team is forced to rely on its own. The loss of their habitat on Mars, and the unexpected bloodlust of the team's exploration robot, AMEE, further complicates things. A CGI wonder, AMEE morphs between different predatory poses - human and panther. On mars to help map the planet, AMEE was actually designed for the military, and a hard landing on the planet only brings up the machine's darker side. On the team's own side (barely evening out the odds) are a few surprises - a breathable atmosphere when none is expected (the algae lakes have mysteriously disappeared - so where's the air coming from?) and barely usable technology salvaged from those few space probes which successfully reached the red planet within the past 50 years (the Mars Pathfinder, which landed in the summer of '97, preceded the team by about a half-century). This is a pretty good film - Val Kilmer plays a surprisingly likeable guy, though the film is pretty much paint-by numbers. There aren't that many surprises here (like killing off the pious Terrance Stamp), except for those that stretch plausibility (you'd think that with the money they'd spent on the mission and its importance for the survival of humanity, the planners would have screened out nut-jobs like Pettengill; with all their high-tech, none of the team detect oxygen until they crack their visors and find out they can breathe). It would have been cool to expand on the teams use of all that old earth-junk, but the script was obviously hobbled by the fact that so few missions actually made it to Mars (whether you're counting in metric or otherwise, the number is pretty small). Mars itself gets too little exposure in the script - with the planet approximating little more than a big desert with few s a smart and amazing voyage!! Red Planet is an emmencely entertaining movie. It has a great plot and great acting. Its effects are good too. Red Planet is about a team sent to try and colonize Mars bu they find somethings that are not right. You may remember a similar movie Mission to Mars(which was good) but these two movies part ways beyond which planet they are foing to. Red Planet isa much better film. it's suspenseful, smart, and stylish. It introduces the characters in an interesting way and builds them from there. Val Kilmer and Carrie Ann Moss(the matriz) are superb. Tom Silmore(saving private ryan) also grabs your attention. I love how they showed the connection between Kilmer's and Moss's characters. I can't give the plot away but the team does have a robot chasing them. Overall, Red Planet is a great film that any sci-fi fan will want to see again and anyone else will enjoy the movie a lot. Red Planet is one of the best sci-fi movies in years becasue its not mindless action so everyone will go to it but has a smart plot that any sci-fi fan will love. I reccommend this movie to anyone who eants to see a truly amazing film. MAROONED AND MAUDLIN RED PLANET has some visually stunning effects, and that's about it. The plot is so contrived and incoherent, one wonders what the movie is all about. The bookend narration by Carrie Ann Moss sounds like something a high schooler would write in a creative writing class, and the performances are all average. Not one performance stands out, and that's a shame with such a great cast, although I've failed to see how Val Kilmer has even sustained a career. Benjamin Bratt is annoying; Terence Stamp is like Peter Cushing on Valium, and the usually impressive Simon Baker (TV's Guardian) is saddled with a thankless role as a "traitor" without any underlying premise. Buy Red Planet at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Red Planet Search with the Priority Search Engine on Red Planet This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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