Red Planet (Antony Hoffman) 2000

Production Budget: $75 million Worldwide Gross: $33 million

There is not much to say production wise about this movie.  This is Hoffman’s first and only directorial effort and Red Planet followed the trend of two movies with the same theme being released close to one another.  In this case it was released with DePalma’s Mission to Mars which also failed.

The plot is that its the not too distant future and we have polluted the Earth to the point where its almost uninhabitable.  Scientists turn to terraforming Mars by sending probes with algae to create oxygen in the atmosphere.  However after years of the algae growing, it inexplicably disappears.  The Earth sends the best and the brightest on a mission to find out the cause of the disappearing algae.  Among the actors in this cast are Val Kilmer, Carrie Anne Moss, Terrance Stamp, Tom Sizemore, Benjamin Bratt, and Simon Baker.  Along the way the mission gets F’d up and also a military robot/Mars scout/killing machine/HAL wannabe goes crazy and decides to kill the crew.

Red Planet is a real mixed bag for me.  For one, I really like the cast.  I have always like Val Kilmer who is charming as usual and he is surrounded by some strong performances by Stamp and Sizemore.  But then we have hammy performances from Moss, Bratt, and Baker.  The sets of Mars and the spaceship are nice, but then we have CGI scenes that are downright embarrassing to watch.  I like the tone of the story and the way the plot is set up.  Red Planet is set up as kind of a mystery as to why the algae has left Mars and it kind of reminds me of a story from I, Robot.  A group of scientists learn of a robot that broke one of the laws of robotics and the whole story is a big troubleshooting session to find out what happened.  The problem is they don’t stick to their guns (probably thinking all this discussion would be boring) and they go to a more traditional action route.  The killer HAL robot is (to use some childish words) stupid, moronic, and unnecessary.  Really it put me more in a mood to see an adaptation of Rendezvous with Rama then see this.

That being said, I was content with watching it.  This was actually the second time I had seen it (to refresh my memory for the review) and it didn’t feel like I was wasting my time.  There is enough for it to be enjoyable, but there is also enough to keep me from really recommending it to anyone.  Its fine, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.  There’s better sci fi out there.