Carrie-Anne Moss in "Red Planet."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Carrie-Anne Moss Director: Anthony Hoffman Rated: PG-13, with profanity, violence Length: 105 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Marshall Fine
Gannett News Service

(November 10, 2000) -- You would think that the astronauts aboard the spaceship to Mars in "Red Planet" would have learned from the mistakes of the astronauts aboard the spaceship to Mars in "Mission to Mars" earlier this year.

But they didn't. So let's hope NASA is paying attention, in case they ever send a manned mission to our neighbor up in the sky. Specifically: Getting to Mars isn't the problem-- it's getting from your orbit around Mars to the planet surface that's the tough part. Yet nobody ever seems to think of that.

In Brian DePalma's "Mission to Mars," the problem was an unexpected asteroid shower that caused the red alert. In "Red Planet," directed by first-timer Antony Hoffman, it's a burst of gamma rays. Everything that seemed so easy suddenly becomes complicated and the mission has to take a back seat to simple survival.

Unfortunately, "Red Planet" is cardboard storytelling, despite press notes that trumpet its 900 special-effects shots. It doesn't matter how thick the frosting is, if you dig through it and discover a mere Twinkie at the center.

Written by Chuck Pfarrer and Jonathan Lemkin, "Red Planet" begins and ends with an overbearing voice-over by the mission's commander, Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss), who tells us that, in the year 2050, Earth has poisoned itself and, in a last-ditch effort, has blasted little rockets to Mars to plant algae and produce oxygen.

The idea is to colonize Mars -- but it's up to the Mars 1 mission led by Bowman to discover why the algae is dying and the oxygen levels are dropping, so they can make the planet habitable for humans. But all the planning about what they'll do once they reach Mars is for naught, once those gamma rays fry every circuit in the spaceship.

Bowman sends the rest of the crew to Mars and stays aboard the ship to try to put out fires and reroute the circuitry so they can get back to Earth.

The ground crew consists of five men and, based on the way their names are listed in the credits, you can practically predict the order in which they'll die. Given that his name is above the title, you can be pretty sure it won't be Val Kilmer, particularly because he's the lowly maintenance guy, the "space janitor" in the words of the crew's strutting co-pilot (Benjamin Bratt).

In virtually every respect, "Red Planet" is a rehash of other, better sci-fi thrillers, whose influence can be seen at every turn. That goes for the killer robot they've brought with to help them, which naturally turns on them when its circuits get scrambled, as well as the life form they discover on Mars and even for Bowman's desperate efforts to save the ship before it goes crashing to Mars' surface.

Meanwhile, good actors like Terence Stamp are forced to utter banal dialogue, such as "I realized science couldn't answer any of the really big questions, so I went looking for God." Sounds like he'd be right at home teaching creationism in Kansas.

Kilmer, always an intriguingly preening actor, doesn't have much to work with here. Moss, so intriguing in "The Matrix," has the Sigourney Weaver role: the tough woman who has to stretch herself to save everyone else's neck.

Yawn.

In this crowded movie season, "Red Planet" will prove to be like a shooting star: a quick flash before it disappears to the video store and cable outlets.