Red Planet (2000)

Red Planet is best described as a disaster. The movie could have been a moderate success, but the end result was just a pointless and boring journey from start to finish. When you have a cast featuring the likes of Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, Simon Baker, Benjamin Bratt and Terence Stamp, there would be a chance that this could be watchable. Nope. Not even close. Even the cast could not redeem this poorly unoriginal science fiction movie. Red Planet centers on a group of astronauts tasked to conduct research on the colonization of Mars in order to save the human race on Earth which is slowly dying. The diverse but equally talented and intelligent group of astronauts include Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer, Batman Forever), Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix) Ted Santen (Benjamin Bratt, Law and Order), Chip Pettengill (Simon Baker, The Mentallist) and Bud Chantillas (Terence Stamp, Superman II), as well a military robot named "AMEE" (Autonomous Mapping Exploration and Evasion) which has been brought along to guide them through Mars which was a clichéd version of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). As you guessed it, the mission goes awry when they crash land and they find themselves stranded and fighting for survival. How predictable and unoriginal.Val Kilmer has seen better days and Red Planet was something that he would rather forget. Carrie-Anne Moss was riding high after the success of the mega-blockbuster The Matrix (1999) and this would not have helped her career. Tom Sizemore is more suited to tough guy roles and he looked out of place here. Benjamin Bratt and Simon Baker were just typecast and their characters didn't have anything going for them. Terence Stamp has always been reliable in a majority of his movies, and I strongly felt that he was not at fault here.Red Planet was just boring and uninteresting from start to finish. It could have become interesting or even improve, but the movie just blew every chance. You could be forgiven for thinking that this was another rip off of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) with the similar plot and the artificial robot. Regardless, the end result is poor, and it had nothing going for it. It doesn't even hold a candle to Stanley Kubrick's classic. The ending, while merciful, was also pathetic and it was just tacked on as a band aid solution to finish off the movie.Red Planet was a box office flop that received many dismal reviews from critics and audiences alike. It also cemented a spot as one of the worst movies of 2000. Everything about it was dismal. And not even the cast could redeem the movie. While it didn't put me to sleep, I just couldn't wait for the movie to finish. Save your time and don't waste your money. Red Planet was certainly a forgettable experience.

I remember seeing this when it was new and I disliked it so much that I still remember it clearly to this day. Why do they have a robot with the possibility to hurt people with them. You knew form the start that this will go wrong. All the members are presented in a good fashion except one who you know little about. I wonder who the bad and selfish guy will be.The thing that I so hated was that they after awhile on the planet notice that its possible to breath on it. Two persons died before this without really needing to. I just disliked that "plots twist" so much that I would put this as one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Red Planet (2000): Dir: Antony Hoffman / Cast: Val Kilmer, Carrie- Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, Terrence Stamp, Benjamin Bratt: About as bad as Mission to Mars. Plot regards a small crew deep in space on their way to Mars where they are ship-wretched. From there it is recycled mayhem as crew members die horribly by a mechanical creature that they created. Visual effects are striking and director Antony Hoffman does his best but the story is lame. Some of the crew die early. Terrence Stamp ruptures his spleen on the fall from space. Perhaps it was an easy method of getting off the set. Benjamin Bratt is accidentally pushed off a cliff, perhaps by somebody who couldn't stand his performance any longer. Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss and Tom Sizemore are wasted. They are on the screen the longest, which makes them the bravest considering how embarrassing the film is. Amee the mechanical dog malfunctions and runs rabid just like the screenwriter does when he put pen to paper. The only purpose the film serves is to repeat the same old story and market the production as if intelligent people couldn't see through the dimwitted scheme. Like the mechanical dog, the screenwriter also malfunctioned and ran rabid with crap we have seen countless times. Perhaps this film should be used as a doggie treat for a pound full of mechanical dogs. Score: 2 / 10

"If the life of natural things, millions of years old, does not seem sacred to us, then what can be sacred? Human vanity alone? Contempt for the natural world is contempt for life." ― Edward Abbey A terrible science fiction film by director Antony Hoffman, "Red Planet" opens in the year 2056, with Earth facing an ecological crisis as a consequence of pollution and overpopulation. Hoping to start afresh on a new planet, humans begin seeding Mars with atmosphere-producing algae. Overseeing such operations is Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss), commander of a spaceship sent to monitor oxygen production on Mars. To her surprise, life has begun evolving on the once barren planet.There have been a number of science-fiction films set after an ecological collapse ("Silent Running", "Wall-E", "Lost in Space", "Interstellar", "Mad Max", "No Blade of Grass", "Pandorum", "Snowpiecer", "The Colony" etc). Like most of these films, though, "Red Planet" simply uses its premise to string together a collection of formulaic action sequences. We thus watch as crewmen go violently insane, are attacked by CGI creatures and robots, sacrificially die to save others and as various emergencies befall a spaceship. With a nod to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", the film also attempts to get philosophical, several characters tangentially discussing atheism and creationism. These conversations are trite and terribly written. By its climax, only actress Carrie-Anne Moss, whose character's name is itself a nod to Kubrick, has escaped with dignity. Beautifully sculpted by Darwin's hand, she's a more interesting piece of evolutionary synthesis than anything else in Hoffman's film. Val Kilmer co-stars.5/10 – Worth one viewing. See "Mission to Mars" and "Pandorum".