The Automatik

Mission to Mars is proof that stunning special effects cannot compensate for painfully stilted dialogue and a storyline that steals from every alien episode of The X Files. However, if you enjoy and actively participate in Mystery Science Theater 3000-style mockery, this movie is well worth your money.

I don’t think I have laughed so hard at a non-comedy since the execrable made-for-USA flick, Cabin by the Lake. It baffles me that Brian DePalma could make this kind of drivel or why actors like Don Cheadle and Tim Robbins are involved. During most of his scenes, Robbins’ acting is so stiff and clichéd, I fully expected him to burst into laughter.

From the beginning of this film (and I use the term with some hesitation), stereotypes abound. The premise is a rescue attempt made to Mars on behalf of a previous mission that mysteriously disappeared. That storyline has been worked to death and by better movies than this one. MTM‘s characters are so familiar by the end of the first scene, one can predict their upcoming actions and words with little effort. There’s the self-confident, good natured Commander Woody Blake (Robbins) with his greying military crewcut, who smokes cigars and wears a ’50s rocketship charm around his neck. His wife, Terry (Connie Nielsen) is another astronaut who’s supposed to be feisty and tough, but her character is so wooden we never really care about what happens to her. Don Cheadle plays Luc Goddard (there’s one misplaced homage!), the astronaut-who-could, who serves as a replacement on the first mission for the always crusty Gary Sinise as Jim McConnell. Jim’s wife Maggie died fairly recently, he “watched her waste away,” and he’s never been quite the same. Of course, he’s the best commander around, “he and Maggie wrote the book on Mars.” Yawn. Been there, seen that.

The depiction of the catastrophe that befalls the first mission is appropriately creepy. This is where the amazing special effects take over. This is also where the film’s annoying and insulting practice of rehashing plot points also comes into play. Although we’ve just witnessed the horrible disaster, we are subjected to the reaction shots of the other astronauts (on a manned spacestation outpost) as they view and try to make sense of the (surprise!) garbled videotape made by the lone survivor, Goddard.

The next (and best) part of the film shows us all the bad things that happen to the rescue mission. There’s nothing like the suspense of mistakes made by astronauts floating in space; their paralysis is vividly and effectively portrayed. But even those scenes begin to feel shopworn after a few minutes, and there is a tearful death scene which more than overstays its welcome.

When the resue team lands on Mars, they find Goddard in the greenhouse sporting a full face of dreadlocks from his year on the planet. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that his production of carbon dioxide caused the plants to thrive and that their oxygen production kept him alive. Yet he has to explain this to the astronauts as if it is a new and fantastic concept. He describes the relationship between he and the plants as like a marriage, “except for the fighting.” “Well,” he continues, “Sometimes there’s a little fighting.” I know the guy’s been on Mars alone for a year, but fighting with plants? Don’t they give these guys psych evaluations?

Of course they all figure out the planet’s secret (the mysterious noises that come from underground are a strange code for the recipe of human DNA!) and set about trying to communicate their knowledge of this to the planet and thus assure their imminent departure. Sadly, the audience has probably discerned this long before so watching the characters do so is rather excruciating, especially when there is a flashback to a scene that we had pretty much figured out was crucial to the plot the FIRST time we saw it.

The ending, in which the astronauts meet the (apparently) sole resident of the planet is so ridiculously sappy I thought I was watching The Haunting with its unwelcome paean to “family values.” When Jim McConnell (remember now, he’s the smart one) determines that human evolution was prompted by Martian refugees escaping a dying planet he says, “They’re us. We’re them” with a long enough pause in between the statements that I actually said the words out loud before he did. Not since The Prophecy have my psychic abilities to predict dialogue been so acute. The growth and development of life on Earth is visually displayed in a some type of planetarium AND, if you can’t figure it out from watching, it is also described by the astronauts as it occurs. Anyone with four brain cells and a basic knowledge of science knows the theory of evolution so this lengthy scene is rather unnecessary. Perhaps the worst, however, is the slender, doe-eyed alien who sheds a single tear at the memory of its lifeless planet. It was so cloying, I was squealing with embarrassment. And not like we haven’t seen this type of lifeform on 75% of the t-shirts and trinkets that you can buy at Spencer’s Gifts, but I guess they didn’t want to waste any of their special effects budget.

Widower McConnell decides that staying with the alien is his destiny and he disappears up a tube of light, filled with what appears to be water. From his strained expression it was difficult to tell if he was drowning or having a painful bowel movement. Then there is a series of flashbacks of scenes from the movie (you know, in case you missed any of it going to the bathroom or getting popcorn) and then some scenes we haven’t seen, like McConnell’s wedding (this must have been the Director’s Cut of the flashbacks). Why a talented actress like Kim Delaney was wasted in the role of Mrs. McConnell, which basically amounts to nothing more than a cameo, is beyond me.

Similarly wasted is Jerry O’Connell (Sliders), who does manage to breathe some life into Phil Ohlmeyer, the rookie astronaut with the twinkling blue eyes and endless supply of wisecracks. I kept hoping he’d burst out with a “We slide in two minutes!” so they could all get the hell out of what must surely be a step down on the career ladder.