Absolutely the worst movie.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

John Carpenter has made a pretty decent living out of directing low-budget action-horror flicks in various sub-genres. A couple of his sci-fi efforts are genuinely good fun. This movie isn't one of them.Natasha Henstridge has visual appeal, but delivers her lines with all the emotion of a lump of granite. Ice Cube proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is no actor, despite a couple of passable earlier efforts in 'Boyz n the Hood' (1991) and 'Friday' (1995). Jason Statham's character Jericho - supposedly attractive due to his breeding prowess - couldn't get a root in a brothel.The Martians are about as scary as a good bottle of shiraz... three of which may increase your enjoyment of the movie to a tolerable level. No, make it four. Carpenter doesn't even manage a workable soundtrack... usually one of his strengths. I got really familiar with the bits that were saying: "Go to the fridge and find some munchies. Super-boring bit coming up."If you want some topnotch Carpenter sci-fi, check out cult favourite 'They Live', either of the 'Escape from...' movies, or mega-classic 'The Thing'. This one, however, deserves a swift and permanent burial.

Another nail in the coffin of John Carpenter's long-dead career, this braindead action romp is an empty offering missing all the right spots and ending up as an oh-so-predictable seen-it-all-before mess of a movie. Sure, it's pretty enough; the Martian landscapes, bathed in red, are impressively portrayed for the film's budget and the night shooting gives it an extra level of atmosphere it might otherwise have missed. Unfortunately, the visuals are all that this film offers. After some effective scene-building, it becomes yet another us vs. them gung-ho action epic with the heroes shooting hundreds of bullets and using martial arts to destroy the zombie-like bad guys. Not that I'm against action, but this is so suspenseless and uninteresting that I have no choice but to complain.Carpenter seems to think that excitement equals shooting loads of action really fast and intercut, so the action bits are over really quickly. For the best example, look at the difference between this film and his '70s classic ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. The latter was dark, brooding, mysterious, and exciting, because Carpenter let the audience take their time to get to know the characters before bombarding them with increasingly elaborate scenes of action. The film was low budget, the action scenes limited in scope, but nonetheless it has ten times the impact of this glossy, overblown effort with not one element of suspense in it whatsoever. The only good things about the fight scenes are some groovy gore FX (including a couple of nifty decapitations by frisbee) but these are over so quickly as to be unsatisfying. The score, which sounds like a dirge all the way through, is so out of place in this film (or any), that it's astonishing for Carpenter to misjudge this key element so badly.The film's foes are quite interesting but sadly nothing is ever made of their alien personalities, they just become faceless attackers, zombie-like in the worst sense. Carpenter builds up the mystery by showing some alien artwork (metal implements arranged into bizarre hanging displays) and has an interesting, original element in the body piercing done by the aliens on their bodies, perhaps to disfigure themselves to show their hatred of the human form. But their origins and motivation are never explored. Heads on sticks are a concurrent theme but the effects here are cheap-looking and Carpenter cribs his first shock scene (the hanging bodies) from PREDATOR 2. I had to laugh at the cheap CGI aliens who appear in a flashback dream, their features masked by overlaying the image of somebody's face, wish we could have seen more of their cheesiness.Natasha Henstridge leads a cast of uninteresting two-dimensional characters through this movie. Henstridge is dreadful and upstaged by Ice Cube, himself putting in a lazy performance which is nonetheless the best in the movie. British actor Jason Stratham is wasted in the sidelines as a hard-as-nails sergeant whilst blaxploitation icon Pam Grier looks awful in a silly wig and is killed off almost straight away. Add into the brew ludicrous character names like Jericho, Desolation, and most unforgivably "Big Daddy" and you have an idea that the scriptwriters didn't give a damn. You won't either. Thumbs down to this vapid enterprise in effects and no magic.

Ghosts of Mars (2001): Dir: John Carpenter / Cast: Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Clea DuVall: Natasha Henstridge plays an officer sent to Mars to transport a dangerous prisoner and she narrates the film because she was the only one to return alive. Bodies litter the prison and Ice Cube is blamed until it is discovered that ghostly beings inhabiting human bodies are responsible. We witness possessed bodies being inflicted with wounds. Eventually Cube and his crew show up and it appears that both forces will have to unite if they are to survive. This leads to a graphic climax where heads detach from torsos and blood splatters the screen. Horror films that are reduced to heavy amounts of gore prove that they lack faith in their delivery. John Carpenter use to make terrific films such as Halloween and Escape From New York. This isn't one of them. In fact, this looks like a variation between his own version of The Thing clashed with Dawn of the Dead. Other than Henstridge and Ice Cube the film features wasted appearances by Jason Statham, Clea DuVall and Pam Grier. They basically spend ninety minutes bickering followed by running and then fighting back where creatures are blasted to pieces and human characters are torn to bits. That is exactly what should be done with the film. The special effects have all the potential of a bag of puke. Score: 0 / 10

This movie, like all Carpenter movies, should be looked at a bit differently than others. Just like The Thing and Escape From New York, his movies had a very unique feel and look to them. You can easily tell a Carpenter movie from any other! When I rate this, I do it as compared to others that he has directed, created, wrote. It's NOT a classic like The Thing or Escape From New York but I still love it for what it is...a sci-fi action horror. Great characters, I love how the scenes are repeated from different points of view just like old detective stories were presented, and the concept was pure fun!!! Action, gratuitous blasting of murderous zombie-like antagonists, and cliché's galore! It's FUN, gang, not serious! A great movie at parties! I've seen it nearly 20 times and I still get a kick out of it! Carpenter rules!!!!!!!!