Mission to Mars
Official Touchstone Pictures Site

Starring: Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Jerry O'Connell, Kim Delaney, Elise Neal, Gary Sinise, Jill Teed, Kavan Smith, Peter Outerbridge, Connie Nielsen
Category: Action Sci-Fi
Rating: PG

For a movie that professes to reveal the secrets of the universe, I left the theater after seeing Mission to Mars with more questions than answers. It wasn't a problem of suspending my disbelief. I'm not one to say, "Oh, that could never happen!" Because in the first instance you're viewing something that isn't real. The next logical step is to give the same regard for unreality to the subject matter as to the medium that carries it.

No, it wasn't that it couldn't happen. Truth is - after all - stranger than fiction. My problem with Mission to Mars was with the construction of the film. It tried to be too much: action-adventure, sci-fi thriller, romantic comedy, one-hour forty-five minute Deep Thought. Starring a cast that is chock full of reliable veterans like Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, and Jerry O'Connell (yes, with Sliders under his belt, I consider him a vet too), Mission to Mars went from calculated anticipation to gratuitous corn.


Set in 2020, the film starts out at a backyard barbeque. Apparently the tree-huggers haven't banned outdoor open flames by then, although they seem to have cut back on internal combustion engines. Fast-forward approximately 12 months ahead to the Mars 1 mission, led by astronauts Luke Graham (Don Cheadle), Nicholas Willis (Kavan Smith), Renee Cote (Jill Teed), and Sergei Kirov (Peter Outerbridge), already established on the red planet. Amidst eerily-tinted vistas, the first team encounters otherworldly difficulties. In response, a rescue team is formed.


Fast-forward some 12 more months (are you keeping up with me here?), and the rescue mission is underway. Headed by Woody Blake, played by an oddly subdued Tim Robbins (Arlington Road), the mood of this rescue team is a bizarre jubilance. But then, it's tough to remain focused on your professional determination to save someone when a year's gone by. Tough also for the audience to care, quite frankly.


The other Mars 2 members include Jerry O'Connell as Phil Ohlmyer, to whom the writers deigned to give a personality, Gary Sinise as Jim McConnell - angst-ridden over the loss of his beloved wife and therefore searching... for something... conveniently, and Connie Nielsen as Terri Fisher (Blake's wife) who just looks good. Sorry to say, she's the token female.


Other than some fantastic cinematography and some great complexions (these people look wonderful in those close-ups), Mission to Mars was a rather forgettable collection of unrelatedness. The story would have been better served by flashbacks rather than a straight timeline. This film, like the real-life NASA Mars Program it sought to emulate, needed to go back to the drawing board. Mission to Mars is rated PG for violence and adult situations; it should have gotten a -13 tag as well.

A disappointment!