Unfortunately the man-made atmosphere on Mars has started to deteriorate so
it's necessary to send a manned mission to investigate. Why ? Who knows.
Perhaps the technology, so capable of dumping a fully built, and working,
habitation unit on Mars just isn't up to the job. Perhaps it was thought
that this would make a better film than one about a webcam on a stick
whizzing across space to investigate ?
Along with our crew - captained by a woman, to show that it's not just men who
can handle the rough and tumble of space, and to make the shower scene a bit
interesting - there's AMEE ( that's "Amy" to be cute ), a spidery type
robot provided to make navigation on the planet easier, with a full-blown
military mode, selected by a toggle switch, for some dubious reason.
Anyway, it all goes well, until they reach Mars, when the ship is hit by a
solar flare. The circuits, Star Trek style, burst into flames and the crew
have to evacuate, arriving on Mars more prematurely than they'd hoped.
With AMEE jettisoned en route, and the captain stuck on the mother ship, having
seized control of the situation, we're in the 'survival mode' part of the
film.
Heading off to the habitation unit, the survivors of the crash find that it's
been destroyed, and whilst lamenting their fate and resigning themselves
to a slow death, they discover that, one, there is an atmosphere, and, two,
AMEE's back.
Up to here, this had been a stunningly well executed screenplay. The sets had
been amazing, the story credible, the dynamics good and there was real intrigue
as to how they'd survive their ordeal.
Then up pops Robocop's dog, now in military mode, having been damaged in the
crash, and it decides it's got to kill the crew off one at a time. Oh, for
f--k's sake ! Just when it was all going so well.
At least the doggie then buggered off and left the plot alone for the majority
of the film, only cropping up when we needed a character killing off and in
a contrived ending.
The screenplay unfortunately took a turning for the worse, although the film
remained enjoyable.
First the crew find an old Mars Rover, rip out a modem, and in true A-Team
style, fashion a two-way radio which, amazingly enough, allows contact with
Earth control. How a modem can be used as a two way radio is an intriguing
subject, and how its solar panel kept it going at night is another.
Suffice to say that crew and captain are once more in touch, and it's time
for them to head off to find an escape vehicle; an old Russian exploration
unit which failed to take off. A not so subtle dig there, I note.
Anyway despite AMEE's best attempts at butchering the crew, we make it to
what is now the only way off the planet, boot-up the Ruskies' kit and watch
its multimedia web interfaces spring to light, where it politely reveals
that there's not enough battery power to fire the rockets.
Plenty of juice to run a web server, graphics, voice processor, play MP3's
and download your email off AOL, but not enough to fire the rockets.
Luckily AMEE comes along, and with the help of a triple-A battery, we're on
our way back home again. Mankind will be saved.
From such a promising start, Red Planet lost out to a lack of
reality and tightness of plot.
AMEE in particular was a pointless plot device, serving no purpose other than
to show off some CGI skills. Her function could easily have been better served
by using something which would have been more realistic in the plot; if we're
going to have alien life teeming around, we might as well have something big,
nasty and mean that happens to have evolved as well.
There were all the things in place to make this a really good film, but it was
let down by the little things. Dropping in some funky background music to make
the soundtrack saleable was disappointing, given that it was otherwise so well
integrated, despite its diversity.
The product placement, mainly corporate names cropping up on uniforms and
spacesuits was brazen and noticeable, and in complete contrast to the efforts
taken to ensure there were no reflections of film crew in space helmet visors.
Despite having sacrificed itself to an inane sub-plot of killer robot goes
berserk, the film had many redeeming features, not least the tightness of
direction, pace and editing.
That it came out so well, despite the efforts to undermine itself, is amazing.
It's a shame that the producers didn't have the guts to 'can the doggie' and
turn Red Planet into something which would have been truly incredible.
This could so easily have been the science fiction, action film which stood
high above others. Someone made a bad call, somewhere along the line.
