The year is 2000. Scientists, realizing that it's too late to save the Earth, begin planning the colonization of Mars. Skip ahead 25 years. Scientists have begun sending algae to populate Mars and create oxygen. Skip ahead another 25 years. With the future of the human race on their shoulders, scientists have sent six American astronauts to conquer the red planet.
"Red Planet," starring Val Kilmer, starts out with this mildly interesting premise. The story of the first man on Mars has been told many times before, but director Antony Hoffman suggests that perhaps wham-bam action sequences and memorable characters can make this attempt stand out from the bunch. But the first five minutes irreversibly deflate that small hope.
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Carrie-Anne Moss plays Commander Bowman, the serious feminist astronaut, whose monotone voice-overs give the audience most of the information they need to survive "Planet." Her fellow cliched and uninspired astronaut characters keep this boring, flat tone going. There's Santen, the cold arrogant astronaut (Benjamin Bratt); Chantillas, the Christ Figure astronaut (Terence Stamp); Burchenal, the affable scientist astronaut (Tom Sizemore); Pettengill, the shady astronaut with an ulterior motive (Simon Baker); and Kilmer's Gallagher, the rogue underappreciated astronaut. Don't bother too much with their names; they're stenciled on their space suits in case you forget them (which you will).
"Planet" begins in medias res; the six astronauts are already yucking it up on the way to Mars. The plan is to land on Mars near a habitat that seems to have magically built itself. At the habitat is water and food and shelter and other necessary resources for survival. When the ship hits a solar flare, however, the astronauts must abandon ship and head for Mars early and without Bowman, who stays behind to fix the crippled ship. Additionally, she struggle with her loneliness and repressed feelings for Gallagher. Since they are the male and female leads of the movie, Gallagher and Bowman fall needlessly and unconvincingly in love, of course.
There's no time for love, though, when the five remaining astronauts on Mars see not a hint of algae anywhere, only the scattered remains of the habitat. With only a few hours left of oxygen in their tanks, there is plenty of time to sit around, awaiting their inevitable death. And wait. Hoffman insists that the audience wait patiently for the astronauts to figure out that they can breathe Mars air. This scene is one of the several stupefyingly obvious plot devices which make up the film's attempts at breathtaking moments.
Hoffman spends the rest of "Planet" cutting between boring scenes on the spaceship with Bowman and boring scenes on Mars with the rest of the astronauts. The astronauts begin to die off in predicable, uninteresting ways. Remember that part in the beginning when you left to refill your Mr. Pibb? You missed the major scene of character development with Chantillas and Gallagher. Never fear. It's so important that we see it again in flashback form. Science can't explain the interesting questions, Chantillas says. He hopes someday to pick up a rock and read on its underside, "Made by God." This is why whenever Gallagher picks up a rock and contemplates it, Hoffman lays it on with heavy-handed symbolism.
At least Hoffman attempts to alternate action sequences with some form of character development. While failing in the latter, the action sequences themselves are not bad. The best ones involve AMEE, a bobcat-like robot who was programmed for good but, as a result of the solar flare accident, is now programmed for evil. Some of the sequences have glaringly obvious computer effects, but they rarely reach the point of cheesiness.
Maybe if writer Chuck Pfarrer had concentrated less on effects-heavy technology and more on differentiating between the almost indistinguishable astronauts, "Planet" could have been a thrilling character study of six people shoved together in adversity. Perhaps then the audience would forgive the painful pseudo-science and actually fear for the astronauts' lives. Instead, however, "Planet" is just another sci-fi action flick, as forgettable as its characters' names.
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