maybe this mission should have been scrubbed 
mission to mars 
a film review by michael redman copyright 2000 by michael redman 
there's a world of difference between artists and technicians . 
the artist has a vision to create something new . 
he may not do it well , it might be sloppy , but it's something you've never seen before . 
a good technician can make it look good , but without direction from his own inner artist or someone else , it's going to be just a xerox . 
obviously successful films need both skills . 
brian de palma is a masterful technician . 
he's spent his career copying others , most notably hitchcock . 
he usually knows exactly what to do to make a scene work , but only because he has learned it by rote . 
aside from rare flashes of originality , his films are often soul-dead . 
in de palma's latest , he turns his attention to stanley kubrick . 
to tell the truth , i enjoyed portions of this movie , but i liked it a lot better over 30 years ago when it was called " 2001 " . 
i enjoyed it even more when it was titled " close encounters " . 
nasa has set its sights for mars . 
when the first crew meets with disaster , a rescue mission is sent to the red planet . 
they don't do so well either , but eventually meet up the lone surviving astronaut-gone-rasta and solve the mysteries of the universe . 
and it's all so boring . 
there are so many scenes that just don't work , it's difficult to begin . 
when the first crew is a few feet away from a raging massive upside-down martian tornado ( which looks remarkably like a sandworm from " dune " ) destroying everything in its path , they just hang out watching . 
error . 
the most interesting character ( and that's not saying much ) is killed off . 
error . 
the alien is laughable . 
error . 
the rest of the characters are the dullest people imaginable . 
error . 
there's some nice eyecandy . 
the face on mars , which turns out to be a giant metal thai buddha head , looks cool . 
a three-dimensional holographic planetarium is more fun to watch than anything at disney world . 
maneuvering in space suits outside the ship seems realistic . 
but there's so much more that feels as if we've been there before . 
from " 2001 " , there's the rotating space station , the blinding white room . 
>from " close encounters " , they solve a sound puzzle and play it to the aliens . 
the list goes on . 
the actors are mostly mobile wooden statues . 
even gary sinise and tim robbins can't muster enough emotion to convince us they are breathing . 
no one seems to care about anything that happens . 
you won't either . 
the absolutely worst sin is the blatant product placement as dr . pepper , with a 20 foot tall logo , saves the day . 
they should save the commercials for those insipid bits before the film .