De Palma a la Mod

Count The Los Angeles Times' Justin Chang among those who feel that Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars is underrated. In the opening paragraph of his review of The Space Between Us, Chang cites several films as better space travel movies than the one that will be released tomorrow (Friday): 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Interstellar. Those three movies are examples "that seek to test the audience’s perceptual limits, altering our sense of time and place so as to usher us into the vast frontier of the unknown," states Chang. Meanwhile, The Space Between Us, he writes, takes "the vast frontier of the unknown and whittle[s] it down to something obvious, familiar and dispiritingly pocket-sized."

And then in his final paragraph, Chang states: "There’s nothing wrong with trying to give science fiction an accessible, emotional dimension: Ridley Scott’s The Martian managed it beautifully and so, for that matter, did Brian De Palma’s underrated Mission to Mars. But the clumsy, hurtling rhythms of The Space Between Us, much like its credulity-straining visual effects, betray a movie utterly disengaged from its own premise. Far from amplifying the human factor, it merely cheapens and diminishes everything it touches, not least the audience’s capacity for wonderment and surprise."

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CST
Updated: Friday, February 3, 2017 12:16 AM CST
Post Comment | View Comments (5) | Permalink | Share This Post

Comments Page

Friday, February 3, 2017 - 3:35 PM CST

Name: "harry georgatos"

M2M is underrated with 70% of the movie working beautifully. My only problem was the cringe-inducing and at times embarrassing dialogue that comes off as hokey. The only other problem was the visuals in the martian head weren't that good by De Palma. De Palma has said he ran out of money and the visuals in the martian head had to be compromised. Still it's a fantastic movie in parts. Maybe not as good as INTERSTELLAR or 2001 but a film that needs better assessment when it comes to 50's type space optimism.

Reply to this Comment

Sunday, February 5, 2017 - 3:22 PM CST

Name: "rado"
Home Page: http://rado.bg

The over-the-shoulder close-up fest Interstellar is 10% of the film Mission to Mars is.

Reply to this Comment

Sunday, February 5, 2017 - 11:57 PM CST

Name: "Neil"

There's more intellectual muscle in the story of Interstellar that's badly lacking in Mission To Mars.

Reply to this Comment

Monday, February 6, 2017 - 6:31 PM CST

Name: "Sue"

Brian De Palma brings a beautiful visual elan to Mission To Mars where someone like Christopher Nolan films rely on a complex editing structure reminiscent of the films of Malick.

Inception is a film with eyecatching visuals and an editing pattern that has to be admired.

Reply to this Comment

Monday, February 6, 2017 - 6:58 PM CST

Name: "Lear"

There is no Interstellar, Gravity, or The Martian without Brian de Palma's M2M. Period.

Reply to this Comment

Comments Page

View Latest Entries