MISSION TO MARS

It’s hard to believe that a guy who longed to blow the lid off the Hollywood rating system back in the day with movies like "Greetings" and "Hi Mom!" with their unique low budget mix of social satire and frontal nudity could be doing a movie as tame as "Mission to Mars." Thirty years can do a lot to a guy. Or maybe Brian De Palma’s just going back to a childhood fascination with space operas like the special effects Oscar winner from 1950, "Destination Moon" when he was about ten years old. On the face of it, "Mission to Mars" is a "2001: A Space Odyssey" for mature kids with its golly gee heroism, lame dialogue, and big swatches of bright color. This is, after all, a Touchstone (read Disney) production. The only problem is, any kid raised on MTV and video games will probably find the pacing sluggish. But for a director who puts a twist on key scenes from landmark motion pictures in his own work, the chance to mine Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece as well as a few other sci-fi pix from memory, must’ve been irresistible. The voyeurism of Alfred Hitchcock’s "Rear Window" runs rampant in his "Sisters" (1973) and the idea of the baby carriage careening down a marble staircase in "The Untouchables" is right out of the Odessa steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein’s "Potemkin" from 1925. Likewise in "Mission to Mars," a death scene in the silent void of space with the whooshing sound of self propelled rockets is right from "Destination Moon" and the crew walking a vertically inclined rotating cylindrical catwalk is more than just reminiscent of "2001: A Space Odyssey." Other references abound in the forms of rotating ice sticks, radio signals from an unknown source, aliens and a quest for the eternal.

"Mission to Mars" starts out in the year 2020 for a reason. It pays homage to Kubricks’ original "2001" and acknowledges its sequel, "2010" (1984) by adding another decade to its story without serializing it. The screenwriters borrow the basic plot premise of each film, the lost space crew of the first - although narrative fiction is not its intent - and the rescue mission of the second and turned them over to Brian De Palma to work his technical bravado. Despite an all star cast that includes Don Cheadle as the stranded astronaut and Tim Robbins, Kim Delaney and Gary Sinise as the rescuers, "Mission to Mars" merely demonstrates Brian De Palma’s mastery of special effects and keen eye for clinical detail. These attributes, I admit, are often too easily taken for granted from one of our premiere filmmakers, but the absence of some attention grabbing drama makes it all for naught. "Mission to Mars" is strictly for the uninitiated.

Copyright 2000

"Greetings" (1968) - Any description of this will not do it justice. It’s a low budget affair that is all over the place with Robert De Niro as a draft dodger who will undergo any experience to avoid his civic duty at the height of the Viet Nam War. Despite the poor sound, the movie still kicks in with sight gags and satiric barbs that are right on target. It’s movies like this that gave the term ‘Indie’ its coinage. It seemingly made enough money to bank roll the superior sequel, "Hi, Mom!"

"Hi Mom!" (1969) - Robert De Niro is a Viet Nam Vet turned urban guerilla. The highlight of the movie is an uproarious sequence of white upper class patrons paying to go through the Black Experience. No one is safe from the filmmakers barbs. This alone is worth the price of a rental.

"Sisters" (1973) - Margot Kidder is(are) the title character(s) in an amazingly suspenseful whodunnit slasher movie involving Siamese twins, a couch, a mental institution and the female reporter (Jennifer Salt) who thinks she witnessed a murder. Charles Durning is the PI who picks up the clues. This is every bit as good as the blockbuster, "Carrie," that turned De Palma into a force to be reckoned with several years later.

"2001:A Space Odyssey" (1968) - Special effects and symbolic mysticism are at the core of Kubrick’s exploration of man’s quest for other planets and the eternal. They practically obliterate the plot of a apace mission looking for the source of radio signal coming from Jupiter. Liturgical colors are imaginatively used at the end of the movie to signify the life cycle - birth, life, death, and rebirth.

"Destination Moon" (1950) - I know I mentioned this in another review section, but the title of this Oscar winner for special effects continually pops up in any serious discussion of movies about space travel. It was created with the help of George Pal and rocketeer Herman Oberth who was an adviser for Fritz Lang’s silent space fantasy "Woman in the Moon" in 1929. Recently, this has been showing up on late night Network Television. Set your VCRs.