Review of Mission To Mars

Introduction

"Let There Be Life" is the marketing tagline for Mission to Mars - a film that I had little knowledge of until a friend bought it recently and lent it to me to watch.

Director Brian De Palma has made several films that I thoroughly enjoyed - Mission Impossible, Carlitos Way, The Untouchables and Scarface - and that combined with a good cast including Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins and Jerry O`Connell made the film tempting.

Video

Video is presented in anamorphic widescreen at 2.35:1 and is of a very high standard throughout the film.

The movie is a special effects showcase (see also the "extras" of this review) and the martian scenery and spacecraft look fantastic. With CGI being used for most space craft nowadays, it is nice to see some minature models being used - and they really work very well - they are of course overlaid onto computer generated starfields etc, but the overall look is good.

Audio

The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 and in very good throughout, although for much of the film the sound is focussed around the centre channel and front pair, with the rears only coming to life in the action sequences.

Features

The features include an audio commentary, documentary, trailer, DVD-ROM material and various production featurettes etc.

The documentary is very informative, and explains how the martian landscapes models and numerous CGI shots were all done. Of particular note is the huge revolving set built in the studio. The other featurettes are all interesting but quite short.

Conclusion

This is enjoyable enough but under the gloss of the effects it is basically "The Abyss" in space - and not nearly as good.

The actors all play their parts well, and the effects are pretty good, but the plot is a bit ropey to say the least - I was particularly amused that the so-called super intelligent aliens were not clever enough to recognise humans in their space suits and therefore killed them!

Overall it was worth watching, and the documentary was good, but I don`t think it would warrant a repeat viewing.