Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

rsvp321 This one could be an excellent feature for a future "Mystery Science Theater 3000" analysis.This may be the *only movie ever where the computer suffocates* along with the crew when they have a hull breach. It starts to talk slower, and deeper, aannnnd sllllowwwwwwer, annnd deeeeeeeeeper.....as the air leaks out......then they fix the leak and the computer speeds up again and you can hear the happiness and relief in its tone! lol I'm not kidding!It has a barf factor, too - when the married couple start dancing in zero g enroute to Mars, and the others in the crew look on with laughable teenager-like adoring "awwww so cute!" eyes oozing without words, "Gee, I wish that was me!" lolA few cool features; the 3d orrery, the floor countdown clock...but I'd vote for this as *the worst* movie about anything Mars, ever produced to date.

tles7 What can I say, if you watch it, you feel at times as though you are witnessing a "look what we can do with CGI" demo. At other times, you feel like you are in a virtual reality game or maybe a really high-end room in the Planeterium. None of it makes sense. None of it is believable in any way. It tries hard to be "deep" but it often borders on goofy.

al-kamieniecki Ok so why am I writing a review for an 18 year old movie? Because I always thought this film got ripped unfairly. I stumbled across it last night and ended up recalling why I loved it. Are there corny scenes? Yes. Is this a film for people with no imagination? No. You have to buy into the basic premise which is that there are possibilities out there which will astound you when you least expect it. So deal with the zero g dancing. Imagine you are going where Jim is going.

Leofwine_draca This visually impressive tale of adventure and alien contact on Mars is, well, marred by an abundance of clichés and a lack of pacing which threaten to make it boring. There can be no doubt that de Palma's film is largely unsatisfying, generally because we often see impressive glimpses of what could have been, and also, regarding the director's track record, we know he's capable of doing much better. However, the flaws are endless and ultimately result in this film being a mess.Personally, I liked the story very much indeed. Although the plot sometimes feels like APOLLO 13 (a film I personally didn't care for), the inclusion of the science fiction alien aspect makes it much more interesting than that. I especially liked the way they incorporated the real-life "Face on Mars" into the story, a clever trick. There are a number of plot twists along the way and one totally unexpected death scene which had me surprised. Unfortunately, while the story might be a good one, the script is just not so. Instead it's packed with clichéd lines and trite, sentimental dialogue which involves our actors and actresses having to embarrassingly emote as much as possible at all times.I did like the cast in this film, even if they do basically go through the motions. Gary Sinise has long been a favourite of mine, but his smirking performance here can best be described as only adequate, especially during some emotional moments. The finale, in which he makes contact with an alien life form and walks around in a daze of wonder, just isn't convincing at all. Tim Robbins is just a nice, friendly bloke, totally lacking the edge that made his performance in ARLINGTON ROAD so intense. Connie Nielsen doesn't really have much to do, and Jerry O'Connell is just a technical whizz kid on the sidelines. I did like Don Cheadle's performance though.The music score is another disappointment, especially as it comes from Ennio Morricone, the legendary composer. Morricone's music is slow throughout, draining excitement from the action sequences, when it really should be adding to it. I guess everybody has their off days...de Palma's direction also seems vapid and uninterested, apart from one prolonged scene in which our astronauts must venture outside of their ship to repair damage, which is taut and a partial return to the old days for de Palma, when all of his films used to have amazing, prolonged set pieces in them.The special effects help to salvage this film, being pretty much amazing until one key scene at the end. The "possessed" sand storm at the beginning of the film is particularly impressive, and probably looked gobsmacking on the big screen. A surprising moment of violence (at least for a PG certificate) sees an astronaut spinning around and then actually disintegrating. The space scenes are never less than convincing, and all manner of tricks involving blood and Dr. Pepper floating in zero gravity are used, just like in EVENT HORIZON. For most of the time the budget is up on screen, and it shows. You never, for one moment, believe that they're NOT on Mars. These things make the finale harder to watch.Basically, the surviving astronauts enter the "face" and find themselves in a virtual reality simulation which shows how the human race has evolved from aliens. Then one of the aliens shows up, and all credibility is ruined by the appalling CGI used to create it. Never for one moment does this alien look life like, impressive or otherwise, it just looks dumb. This really is inexcusable, as I've seen aliens in films which only a fraction of the budget this one has looking more realistic. Apart from this minor glitch, the special effects help to lift this film from the garbage pile. MISSION TO MARS is best described as a flawed curiosity, although it certainly makes me anticipate those two other 'Mars' films coming out soon, namely RED PLANET and GHOSTS OF MARS.