The last time a movie told the story of an American astronaut stranded on Mars, things didn’t turn out as well as they apparently have with Ridley Scott’s The Martian. Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars is his strangest, most outlying film in a career filled to the brim with outlying directorial choices. De Palma is one of my favorite directors because he does take chances, and they sometimes don’t work; but even so, Mission to Mars manages to stand out from even his most bizarre choices.
Not that Mission to Mars is traditionally a “weird” movie. It tries to be weird, no doubt, as it is loaded with the typical De Palma homages and rife with attempts to shine a light on existentialism. No, this film is not dense in that way, it’s just… odd. The structure is off, the action scenes unintentionally (or intentionally?) languorous, the performances wooden and detached. I may have an explanation for those performances, but the rest is fundamentally inexplicable.
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The story takes place in some sort of familiar near future (they have futuristic cars and such), and begins with a Norman Rockwell-esque NASA backyard barbecue shot in De Palma’s familiar, drifting single-take. It’s the same sort of bravura opening De Palma used in Snake Eyes and within films like Dressed to Kill and Carlito’s Way. Only this one is more utilitarian, introducing our main characters and doing very little to propel any action or build substance. The conversations between Woody Blake (Tim Robbins), his astronaut wife Terri (Connie Neilsen), Luke Graham (Don Cheadle), Phil (Jerry O’Connell) and Jim McConnell (a noticeably adrift and confounded Gary Sinise), are aimless and forgettable, and the drifting POV camera somehow grinds the gears eve further. It is a strange opening for what is intended to be an epic space opera.
Fast forward to Don Cheadle’s Luke Graham being stranded on Mars after a dust storm kills the rest of his crew and he ends up nowhere to be seen. This pushes Woody, Terri, Jim, and Phil into action to try and reduce him. And the plot is underway… sort of. Again, De Palma seems to eschew his typical crazed energy and feverish editing in lieu of long, drawn-out scenes that go absolutely nowhere. Even a sequence during the trip where a microscopic meteor punctures some holes in the hull, causing the cabin pressure and artificial atmosphere to dissipate rapidly, is handled by actors who seem to think they have all the time in the world. There is no urgency, no proper dread. The suspense is surprisingly lackluster from one of the masters of suspense, a Hitchcock disciple nonetheless.
Then, we get to the Red Planet, which looks glorious. It’s really the only thing that works the way it was intended. It is here De Palma employs homages to 2001, only his story is better served with 2010 sensibilities. The astronauts discover aliens have left behind a sort of blueprint, indicating they were the creators of all things in the universe… or something (so this picture manages to tie into two separate Scott space adventures). We see an incredibly 2000’s CGI montage of life evolving on the planet – including wooly mammoths transitioning right into Bison. Who knew? The entire alien encounter, intended to inspire awe, is a head-scratcher without some form of introspective existentialism necessary to make any of it compelling. Not to mention the fact the alien being represented in these final moments appear to be drawn and put together by eighth graders.
It’s clear what De Palma is trying with Mission to Mars, but his methods are confounding. His invasive camera backs off too far this time, making it feel less like a De Palma production more than anything else in his catalogue. Perhaps the wooden performances from Robbins on down are his attempt to “Kubrick up” the actors. Their detachment feels like the sort of far off performance ol’ Stan would employ on the regular. Only here, the majestic visuals and compelling story is absent. Without any driving force behind the events, these intentionally stilted performances are all wrong. Especially Sinise, who seems confused he’s even in the film from time to time. It’s almost as if he’s in the audience, watching this strange and languid story unfold in front of his eyes.
