Battling Planets - 2000’s Double Bill of Mars Films
Mission to Mars vs The Red Planet
In the year 2000 (cue Conan O’Brien and his floating heads) there was suddenly an interest in being the first studio in a long while to head to our favorite land of little green men, Mars.
Mission To Mars
The first to hit the screens was what I consider the NASCAR of the duo, Mission To Mars. Why you ask? Because I’ve never seen a film shove soooo much advertising down your throat in such an obvious manner (Dr. Pepper actually saves the day at one point.) Mission To Mars was made by Buena Vista…you know, Disney. Yes, they also have a ride at their theme park called that too, surprised? Nah, me neither. Consider this the bigger budget brother to that Steve Guttenberg epic Tower of Terror that came out a while back.
PLOT SHOT: Astronauts go on a mission to save the lone survivor of the first Mars Mission. Things go wrong. Gary Sinise wears too much eye liner and Tim Robbins has one of the most unnecessary deaths on film.
MTM was directed by Brian De Palma of all people (Disney, I’m shocked) and has the dubious honor of being one of the first films I ever laughed out loud at the ending in the theater. If it wasn’t Jerry O’Connell playing with M&M’s in space it was the over acting by Don Cheadle (we’re a long way from that hotel in Rwanda here) and the ending just sort of happens. I’m not sure what Disney and De Palma were trying for in this flick. But with a budget of nearly 100 million dollars you’d think they could have come up with a more convincing alien (which funnily enough wasn’t green).
Red Planet
Released a few months after MTM was Red Planet starring Carrie-Anne Moss in one of her Matrix follow ups. Along with Trinity we had Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, and Benjamin Bratt.
PLOT SHOT: Astronauts go on a mission to see if we can colonize Mars since the Earth is dying. Thing’s go wrong, plus they have a homicidal robot to deal with.
The film is pretty messy in terms of plot. You’ve got a pseudo love story between Moss and Kilmer, in-fighting amongst the crew, and then you’ve got the added bonus of the crazy robot who becomes a stalker. It sort of becomes a mishmash of Armageddon with a dose of Saturn 3. Another fun fact about this is the director, Antony Hoffman, basically quit the film industry after making it. It was his first and only movie, coming from a career as a commercials director. With the budget being 75 million and the return not coming close, that might be a clue as to why.
Neither is a masterpiece, but if you want to spend a night exploring the big red, these two will get you there. And who could hate on seeing Tim Sizemore blowing himself up?
-Jessica Dwyer
