Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Holy crap. First MYSTERIO goes and scores the T3 script. Then he sees the mysterious, much-delayed RED PLANET. Is this guy busy or what?!
“Mysterio” back at it yet again. So soon you ask? Well, I hadn’t planned on getting back from “MARS”, aka now “RED PLANET” so soon, the screening that is.
Opening November 3rd, it causes me to wonder why screen a film this late? It takes about 3 weeks prior to release to strike prints, so the film is pretty much locked, and any opinionated changes are pretty worthless. The cards especially. Now the print shown was indeed a workprint, but fairly complete, only missing ending credits and a few places not fully color timed, jump cuts and such. But aside from that, it looked pretty final, clocking in at about 105 minutes.
BUT, is it any good? First, let’s quickly define “good”. “Good” as in say an “Almost Famous” or “Meet The Parents” kind of good? NO. But in terms of good compared to that of say that other Mars film earlier this year, “Mission to Mars”, then yes. But whoa! That ain’t sayin’ much!
Unlike “Mission to Mars” muddled plot, and aimless direction by, of all people, Brian De Palma, “Mission” got too caught up in its convoluted plot to ultimately make little to no sense, and eventually boring the audience right out of theatres.
“Red Planet” on the other hand takes the simpler approach in that the plot basically is that the year is 2050 and Earth’s resources have been all but nearly depleted, forcing mankind to look to Mars for possible future colonization.
With a cast consisting of Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore and Terence “tell me about Jenny!” Stamp, it shows promise.
And if you all didn’t feel like you quite saw enough of Ms. Moss in and out of leather in “The Matrix”, here’s your chance.
The actors all pretty much do the best with what they have, but it’s not much. The fault lies in the script, which basically has part of the crew crash landing on Mars, and left fighting for their survival while trying to find their way back off. Although discoveries about the habitable climate and territory on Mars for colonization are answered, they also learn that their robot, “AMEE”, that was sent with them has been turned from reconnaissance to military mode, causing AMEE to go “HAL-like” against the crew and stalk them one by one.
Granted the CGI effects on the robot AMEE are slightly interesting (especially the ergonomics of AMEE), but it’s basically a predatory lion ready to pounce on its prey in the open territory.
And the saddest part of it all, again, like in “Phantom Menace”, Stamp is wasted. Why is this? Someone for the love of god, why is it you have him in your film and you never use him to potential. Is Soderbergh the only director of recent that knows how good an actor Stamp is and how to use him? Apparently so, and it’s a shame (actually one of the only reasons I gave this flick the slightest glimmer of hope). As for Carrie-Anne Moss? She’s adequate, but her character spends most of the time on the ship in orbit above Mars, that she never really has much interaction with any of the other characters except by way of radio (a la “The ABYSS”).
The only question I was left with after the film, is why would anyone want to spend 105 minutes colonizing on this dreadful planet of a movie?
--Mysterio
