How do you choose which movies to see? If you're like most people, you base your decision on a number of factors: who's starring, what genre of film, what the preview/commercial looks like, what your friends recommend. If you're a movie buff, you might take into consideration the director or other production members. I even hold out hope that you read a review or two to help guide your entertainment options.

Movie critics don't have a lot of choice as to what we see, but, using a lot of the same factors, we still anticipate how a movie will play out. Which meant there were high expectations for the new movie Mission to Mars, starring Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise. Both of those actors have a solid track record (Robbins in films like Shawshank Redemption and Bull Durham, Chicago-native Sinise in Ransom and Apollo 13). And with director Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible, Untouchables) at the helm, even the tricky action/sci-fi genre had promise.

Unfortunately, De Palma also made Bonfire of the Vanities, and that film is a more appropriate touchstone. Again, he's taken an intelligent cast and decent premise and yet made a movie so bad that it might one day become a cult camp-classic.

The most interesting question about Mission to Mars is why anyone--director, actors, producers--got involved in the first place. For the script, by Lowell Cannon, Jim & John Thomas (Wild Wild West, Predator 2) and Graham Yost (Speed, Broken Arrow), is excruciating. Every wooden piece of dialogue (and they're all fit for the fireplace) serves only to offer some elementary plot info or technical data.

Early in the film, two astronauts, Luke (Don Cheadle, Devil in a Blue Dress) and Jim (Sinise), are discussing the upcoming mission, and the audience is treated to an extraordinarily dull discussion of how Jim would be going on the trip if only his brilliant wife hadn't taken sick--"Jim, this should be your mission," "Oh no, Luke, you deserve this," "Oh no, Jim, you've trained harder for this voyage than anyone," "I don't know about that," "Oh, Jim, you know that you'd be going if you hadn't taken time off to care for Maggie," [Jim gives longing look]. I should point out that I didn't actually record the dialogue, but if anything, my recollection has improved on the original. Not only is this sentimental schmaltz at its worst, but the characters are reduced to offering a plot summary instead of honest interaction.

Later in the movie, when the first mission goes bad, Jim and Woody (Robbins) have to convince the mission commander to let them mount a rescue mission. Now this might actually happen in real life, but we in the audience already know the end result, so the five-minute conversation of cliches and platitudes is redundant and insulting.

If all of this weren't enough, we're also subjected to false patriotic images of the American flag (strange since the mission is obviously multi-national), manipulative graveyard shots and, worst of all, a flashback of Jim and Maggie's wedding at which she utters the movie's mantra: "Life reaches out for life; that's what we were born for." For anyone in the audience who didn't grasp this theme's profundity, the script kindly repeats it a couple more times.

The only innovative thing in the story is that one of the main characters is killed off half-way through the film. But even here, the script betrays itself with gross sentimentalism. The movie would have you believe that the astronaut sacrifices himself so that others might live. In fact, he wisely commits suicide so that he won't have to experience the horror of the movie's last 45 minutes.

I won't even try to explain the movie's climax, a ridiculous sequence that begins with a rip-off of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and ends with an evolution lesson disguised as a computer-generated effect. Speaking of
effects, the ones in Mission to Mars are impressive in technique if ludicrous in execution. All you need to know about the aliens is that they manifest themselves in a tornado that's been woken up too early. And speaking of Kubrick, he must be rolling in his grave. It's as if De Palma had run out of Hitchcock tributes and turned his gaze on Kubrick. The 2001 references include a rotating space station, a revolving running track, an ultra-white room, and a dance in space, though De Palma chooses to replace Strauss with Van Halen. I am not making this up.

In the midst of this mess, it's not surprising that the actors are completely overwhelmed. Sinise, the Steppenwolf co-founder, usually lights up the screen with his intensity, but here his bulb burns very low, and Robbins just wears a bemused expression as if he can't believe he signed on to this project.

Is there anything redeeming about this film? Well, the cinematography by Stephen Burum (Mission: Impossible) is impressive, particularly a very long sweeping crane shot that opens the movie. Otherwise, nada.

But back to our opening question. Even if you thought Mission: Impossible was the best movie of a couple years ago, even if Gary Sinise is your favorite actor, and even if you're a sci-fi buff, do not...I repeat, please do not see Mission to Mars. Trust me. 

J. Robert Parks 3/9/2000