Don't listen to the negative reviews

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is a fairly enjoyable, old-fashioned slice of sci fi escapism which runs through all the old genre clichés without offering up anything you haven't seen before. Released at the box-office at around the same time as Brian De Palma's MISSION TO MARS, for me this is the superior film, although it has to be said that neither are great. Technically proficient, RED PLANET looks and sounds great but is oddly uninvolving. It's kind of like all those old '50s science fiction yarns in which astronauts land on a remote planet, combat and fight all kinds of foes and dangerous situations, and return home. Except the wobbly special effects and spaceships are now replaced with state-of-the-art CGI design and impressive, expensive visuals created by today's top computers.One thing the film has in its favour is that it places emphasis on characterisation over a constant stream of action. This may be why it was a flop with younger audiences. Personally I would prefer the former in terms of good film-making but then again I'm not adverse to the latter, being an undemanding genre fan. The cast is an interesting one with some accomplished performers, although it has to be said that everyone seems to be going through the paces with the exception of Tom Sizemore, an actor who grows on me every time I see him. Here he puts in another edgy, likable turn as a sceptical geneticist. The much-maligned Val Kilmer takes the lead and gives a solid but unspectacular turn as the rugged janitor who inevitably becomes the film's hero. Carrie-Anne Moss is actually very good as the ship's commander, here giving a more in-depth and human performance than that in her breakthrough role. The supporting players Simon Baker and Benjamin Bratt are fine, and there's a small but typically kooky turn from Terence Stamp as a philosophising scientist! The special effects are excellent, but you wouldn't expect anything else from a film which cost this much to make. The CGI is also impressive, looking more realistic than most, especially in the form of a well-designed robot named AMEE who is damaged and reverts to her military programming, leading to some tense cat and mouse games on the planet's surface. In fact this killer robot is one of the film's main foes and figures predominantly in the finale.Being a film set on Mars, there are of course aliens, although not what you would think; rather, these are flesh-eating killer cockroaches who have eaten all the algae on the surface of the planet. Once again they're very well animated and a memorable threat to our survivors. The plot is fairly slow-moving but there are lots of dangerous situations and cliff-hangers, including one of the best "running out of oxygen" scenes I've witnessed in a film, which looks really painful and horrible for the actors. In retrospect, RED PLANET looks remarkable but doesn't offer up anything new to the genre, but then what new films do nowadays? Enjoyable escapism to undemanding sci-fi fans of which I am unashamedly one.

The second of the Mars based box office bombs released in 2000, Red Planet is maybe - just maybe - worth a revisit by some who were irritated by it back on first viewing. Once knowing that this is not going to be some action packed alien movie, that it's a survivalist drama that tips its hat to 1950s sci-fi schlock, that cares about its characters, then there's a decent popcorner experience to be had here. This is not to say it's a genius entry in the sci-fi pantheon, because it's not, the same problems still exist; Terence Stamp is woefully under used (seriously they could have got any low paid character actor to play his role), some things either don't make sense or are left unanswered, and of course it still drags in the middle as the boys chatter away on Mars whilst Carrie Anne-Moss is up at base station fretting and suffering erectus nippleus.Yet there's fun to be had here, some nutty science marries up with nice photography and splendid set design, and the makers know what sort of picture they want to make. Where Mission to Mars sunk under the weight of its own pretensions - trying to go all elegiac and important, Red Planet nudges and winks and asks you along for the ride. So get on board and take it for what it is, a pretentious free zone with good human drama at the core. 6.5/10

"If the life of natural things, millions of years old, does not seem sacred to us, then what can be sacred? Human vanity alone? Contempt for the natural world is contempt for life." ― Edward Abbey A terrible science fiction film by director Antony Hoffman, "Red Planet" opens in the year 2056, with Earth facing an ecological crisis as a consequence of pollution and overpopulation. Hoping to start afresh on a new planet, humans begin seeding Mars with atmosphere-producing algae. Overseeing such operations is Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss), commander of a spaceship sent to monitor oxygen production on Mars. To her surprise, life has begun evolving on the once barren planet.There have been a number of science-fiction films set after an ecological collapse ("Silent Running", "Wall-E", "Lost in Space", "Interstellar", "Mad Max", "No Blade of Grass", "Pandorum", "Snowpiecer", "The Colony" etc). Like most of these films, though, "Red Planet" simply uses its premise to string together a collection of formulaic action sequences. We thus watch as crewmen go violently insane, are attacked by CGI creatures and robots, sacrificially die to save others and as various emergencies befall a spaceship. With a nod to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", the film also attempts to get philosophical, several characters tangentially discussing atheism and creationism. These conversations are trite and terribly written. By its climax, only actress Carrie-Anne Moss, whose character's name is itself a nod to Kubrick, has escaped with dignity. Beautifully sculpted by Darwin's hand, she's a more interesting piece of evolutionary synthesis than anything else in Hoffman's film. Val Kilmer co-stars.5/10 – Worth one viewing. See "Mission to Mars" and "Pandorum".

Compared to "Mission to Mars", which was also released in 2000, then "Red Planet" pales. The storyline in "Red Planet" is just simply too far fetched to be anywhere near the other movie.The story in "Red Planet" is about an expedition sent to Mars to try to figure out a way to save the dying Earth. But the mission quickly goes awry and it becomes a desperate race against time.Storywise, then "Red Planet" wasn't as captivating or thrilling as "Mission to Mars" was. Sure, it had its moments, but in overall it didn't fare all that well.There weren't all that many special effects throughout the movie, which sort of was a shame, because it could have brightened up the movie, now that it was failing on its storyline. However, one of the special effects that should be mentioned as being fantastic was the fire in zero gravity. That was really impressive, and the movie is worth watching for that scene alone.As for the acting, well I can't claim to be a fan of neither Val Kilmer or Carrie-Anne Moss, but they were actually doing quite good jobs in "Red Planet". It was a shame that Simon Baker wasn't given a more outstanding character or a character with more impact on the story, because his talent was far from utilized in this movie. And the choice of Tom Sizemore, well that just baffles me - enough said.What didn't work for me in "Red Planet" was the fact that there was breathable air on the surface of Mars. And if these algae and insects were creating breathable air, wouldn't it require a much, much larger area of algae covered ground? And as such, wouldn't that green patch be noticeable on the surface of Mars from space? The costumes were quite interesting, as was the interior of the spacecraft. Although it was a bit too futuristic compared to its functionality. But hey, it looked cool.Mars itself wasn't really convincing, especially because (as I just mentioned) that there was breathable air there. And, similar to "Mission to Mars" they had failed to take into consideration the gravity issues, that it differs from Earth. And also during the ice storm, wouldn't you be able to see people's breath clearly as they exhale? Visuals are important when making a movie such as this.I am rating "Red Planet" 4 out of 10 stars, because it failed in overall to pass as a Sci-Fi movie with potential. It was just some nice landscape shots with a mediocre story that had rather large holes in the story. Not the brightest moment in Sci-Fi cinema.