They
did a great job here of somehow making a space movie set on and
around Mars, featuring an evil robot, backstabbing team members, and
flesh eating alien bugs, boring. We start with a long explanation of a
pretty basic future scenario (Earth is overcrowded, so we're trying
to terraform Mars, one stage of which is oxygen producing moss,
which mysteriously disappears so we send a team up there to
investigate) and the film isn't finished with us, and we're treated
to bouts of terrible stilted explanatory dialogue delivered by the
robotic actors throughout the rest of the movie.
All
the exposition is really what first kills it for me. The actual
characters completely lack character, and just spend their time
talking in dated Internet verse at one another about awkward world
building.
There
were actually a few good cast members, but their performances were
crippled by the terrible script. There were also several problem
elements, where there only really needed to be one or two. These
range from natural disasters to an evil robot to a very obviously
evil teammate to evil alien bugs. They can't seem to stick to any one
villain for longer than half an hour, and this along with the dated
effects and dull action sequences creates a huge disconnect for me.
Red Planet: 20.0