MISSION TO MARS (2000) *1/2 In the opening scene the astronauts are sitting around a pre-launch family barbeque doing all the things that you'd expect from '50s sci-fi genre, with the innovation of drinking Budweiser from plastic cartons and Japanese cars with spoilers. Then one of the Mars missioners tells another to "bring some expensive beer." I can be forgiven for thinking that they had a good start on ironic schlock. Instead, against any previous indication, Brian De Palma is shooting for 2001: A Space Odyssey, launched from an idea borrowed from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Incredible, I mean, this guy used to be good didn't he? Isn't it the same one? The dialogue consists almost entirely of lines so trite that only Clark Gable could utter them without looking and sounding like an idiot, and believe me he never drank Bud out of cardboard. The actors are so bad that it's more embarassing than funny, except for Don Cheadle who has a moment or two when they have him acting like a visionary Rastafarian. The only good thing about it all is that there's never enough to make you sad as the characters fall through holes in the universe/script that are only slight variations on standard soap opera formula. Some of the special effects are pretty cool, should have omitted the plot, like Kubrick.
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