Mission to Mars

The Plaid Adder
plaidder@mindspring.com"

WARNING: Contains spoilers. As if it could be spoiled...

...oh. My. GOD could this be any more derivative? Put 2001 and the TNG episode "The Chase" in a blender, strain out anything disturbing or inexplicable, stir in a pint of Dr. Feelgood's Extract of Universal Upbeat Ending, and this is what results. Eeeeeeurgh.

First of all, the spaceship was so 2001 it made me start having thoughts of copyright law. Second, the "message as series of repeated musical tones" thing is not only lifted out of "Close Encounters" wholesale, but put to the shallowest use imaginable. "Hey! It's human DNA!" What a SURPRISE. I would be interested to see whether this or "Last Temptation of Mulder's" giant alien spacecraft would win a competition for "fuzziest-headed, cheesiest, most groanworthy use of human DNA as the Great Message From Our Alien Progenitors." Points at which I laughed when I should not be laughing included: the first appearance of the giant glowing Martian woman, many points during the video presentation about what happened to the solar system, and the closing line addressed to the disappearing Martian spacecraft.

Large implausibility issues include:

  • Luke recovering his sanity almost effortlessly after having tried to kill the other astronauts with his hammer type tool.
  • Terri recovering her equanimity almost effortlessly after watching her husband commit suicide in space.
  • Them all just strolling happily into the giant white face without worrying too much about what's gonna happen there.
  • And, of course, the whole plot.

    • There were only two good lines in this movie:

    "We're 30,000,000 miles from Earth inside a giant white face. What's impossible?"

    and

    "No, I'm sorry, he's not here right now, he left for earth FIVE MINUTES AGO."

    Which I guess might count as exceeding expectations. But DAMN. Even the supposed-to-be-highly-affecting scene in which Tim Robbins explodes his own head to save--was that Annette Benning or a younger actress who looks like her?--completely failed to move me because they were both such cardboard characters.

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