year : 2000 . starring gary sinise , tim robbins , don cheadle , connie nielsen , jerry o' connell , kim delaney , elise neal , peter outerbridge , armin mueller-stahl . written by lowell cannon ( story ) , jim thomas & john thomas ( story & screenplay ) , graham yost ( screenplay ) . directed by brian de palma . rated pg . there should be a requirement that a potential viewer be under a certain film iq in order to see " mission to mars . " there are probably quite a few people who are going to enjoy it , and most of them will probably be those who have seen very few films of its kind . but there are those who will not , and those will most likely be people who have already seen one or more of the following movies : " 2001 : a space odyssey , " " armageddon , " " apollo 13 , " " the abyss , " " close encounters of the third kind , " " e . t . the extra-terrestrial , " " alien , " and " aliens . " why ? because there is not one original idea in " mission to mars . " all of it is cribbed from other films ( and in most cases , better films ) . if this is the sort of thing you don't mind , you might like the film . of course , there are other reasons not to like " mission to mars , " the main one being a script written by people who seem to assume their audience is filled with people who haven't used their brains in some time , and who don't intend to start during the film's running time . " mission to mars " manages to be both stupid and boring at the same time . the plot , cribbed greatly from " 2001 , " concerns a team sent to mars , the first manned trip ever made to the red planet . luke graham ( don cheadle ) leads the team , jointly formed of americans and russians . the team encounters a mysterious monolith that emits a strange pulse ( this being nothing like the pulse-emitting monolith in " 2001 " -- that one was on the * moon * ) , but when they try to study it , a giant sand tornado comes out of the top and swallows them ( all except luke , who survives long enough to send a garbled message back to the rotating space station , which looks strangely like the rotating space station in " 2001 " ) . a rescue mission is planned with husband & wife team woody blake ( tim robbins ) and terri fisher ( connie nielsen ) , obligatory pilot with a troubled past jim mcconnell ( gary sinise ) , and extra crew member phil ohlmyer ( jerry o'connell ) along for the ride . after some zero-gravity dancing , they run into problems when one of their engines is blown , forcing them to attempt a desperate landing aboard a supply vessel . now stranded on mars with minimal supplies , the team must decide whether or not it can risk entering the monolith or if they should return home . after all , that monolith just might contain information about how life originated on earth . " mission to mars " is one of those films that makes a critic wonder where to start when talking about all the things that are wrong with it , so let's start with one of the things that does work : director brian de palma manages to create some eerie tension in a few scenes during the middle of the film . that's it . everything else fails . the failure isn't de palma's fault ; he's working from an atrocious script . only during the sequence aboard the ship ( looking an awful lot like the jupiter vessel in " 2001 " ) where the rescue team's air begins running out and they must frantically search for the hole and patch it up does " mission to mars " come to life . a scene where they attempt to save a comrade floating away into space also provides some tension , until you realize that the entire danger/more danger/attempted rescue sequence has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film ; it's just a contrived way to generate thrilling scenes . take it out , and the plot isn't affected in any way . the sequence also suffers from a few plot holes ( as does the rest of the film ) : why is the ship's computer ( which sounds strangely like hal from , uh , " 2001 " ) able to detect a hole in the main chamber but not one in the engine ? why did tim robbins' character have to go outside the ship when the solution easily presented itself from inside ? shouldn't the astronauts be better trained to deal with a hull breach ? why are the characters such idiots ? because the script makes little attempt to properly develop them . all the " conflict " is clumsily delivered in excruciatingly obvious exposition in the opening scene ( which rips off orson welles and robert altman by utilizing a long opening tracking shot ) during which the characters repeatedly tell each other about things all of them should already know : " jim , it's too bad you can't go on this mission because you were determined 'psychologically inadequate' because your wife died right before you were to go on the mission together " -- does anyone really talk like this ? can't we find out these things in a less grating matter , like maybe in a flashback ? the whole film is like that . the filmmakers are not content to merely show us something and assume we know what's going on ; they must * tell * us exactly what we're looking at * every * time . 
