TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

gwlucca This was an unexpectedly realistic treatment of the first manned voyage to Mars. It is far from scientifically accurate in every respect, but it scores more points for realism than films with 10 times its budget.The story is a bit slow, but then again, that would be reflective of the pacing on a real voyage to Mars lasting years. The computer graphics were at times so convincing that it is easy to buy into them, especially the EVA scenes.I found the acting more than adequate; they were convincing enough for me to care about their characters. That's more than I can say about many films.The title is a bit of a deception. This is not a "race" to Mars rather than a slow sailing boat voyage with plenty of time for reflection. Eight stars out of ten.

Marcwolf-2 I really enjoyed "Race to Mars" and have watching it several times.One of the things that people forget is that space travel is SLOW and BORING. Yes there will be people who find the level of action slow but it also brings to light just how routine the astronauts lives will be.I am old enough to remember the first and the last Apollo mission. From when people cheered and watched in awe, to when they complained because the re-runs of soaps were cancelled for the moon missions.The accident scenario's in this are likewise realistic - although they do push the limits a little. But the solutions are likewise realistic and would work.Just my views. Marc

Randy Cliff Race to Mars was promoted well enough if you watch "Discovery", but I'm sure most people missed this one. It was presented as two 2-hr segments. The story will be for most one of "how to get to the planet, and actually return". I saw a story with a lot vision of what would be necessary to accomplish this mission, with good blend of what kinds of things can go wrong -- and how well prepared is the crew able to maneuver through all the struggles that they encounter.We enjoy Science Fiction of all kinds -- reality is tough enough, and most people's idea of reality (if I may say) is just plain stupid. We like being entertained. I have no idea of how exact the science is here, and I since I enjoy sci-fi movies from the 50's, I can't get real hung up on whether the special effects and animations are the most excellent -- so I'll just have to recommend that sci-fi fans will have to checkout "Race to Mars" the next time the mini-series comes into orbit.

David Jones It's not that these actors can't act; I've seen several of them do great work in other roles. But here, they just seem to plod through most of their scenes, having to chew their way through dialogue that veers from corny to painfully expository. The writers and the director have to share about equal parts blame for this one.Crises emerge that ought to be engaging and suspenseful, but they're so badly structured and dramatized that every moment just falls flat. Which brings me to the look of this production: The computer-generated backgrounds are just mediocre, hardly better than NASA-sponsored animations they commissioned to illustrate their missions almost five years ago. The spaceship interior sets are reasonably convincing, but the backgrounds for the transmissions from mission control look really cheesy.There were also a couple of factual peculiarities: I'm not sure if I missed something, but five days into the mission, a relative complains about the inconvenience of having to send video e-mails, as opposed to being able to have a two-way conversation. Five days? They wouldn't be that far from Earth in five days. I can't imagine more than an eight- or 10-second delay in transmissions after five days--especially at the speed these guys are travelling. Every scenario for a manned Mars mission that I've read talks about a 6-month flight to Mars. These guys take almost a year, for some reason (a year in which, by the way, no one looks one iota different than when he or she started out). The music sounds as if it was done by a guy with a synthesizer in his basement.What a disappointment.