Mars

"Mars" - a very hard name to carry off for what is at very best a "B" movie. After all, Mars is dramatic territory explored before by Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick (among many others).

The writers of this turkey should have stayed home. It's no crime to realize your limitations and work within them - and these guys might have a promising future in the porn industry if they apply themselves. As serious screenwriters they seem outclassed.

Olivier Gruner fails to impress the viewer as the protagonist Caution Templer, a lawman who must defend himself from attackers while investigating the mysterious death of his brother (also a lawman) on the Martian outpost Alpha City. (Fans of French science-fiction cinema will recall the classic "Alphaville," whose protagonist was named "Lemmy Caution.")

The director and screenwriters have Caution Templar bulling through all sorts of unsocial encounters with bad guys with nary a scratch... and actor Gruner's delivery is such that calling it "wooden" is unkind to wood.

Other action film actors' "wooden delivery" is leavened by compensating features. Next time, Olivier, please watch a LOT of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns and the "Dirty Harry" oeuvre, and see how HE gets away with it.

Shari Belafonte turns in a better performance, but her character is a dim copy of Frances Sternhagen's frontier quack in "Outland" - without the dramatic scope of the original character. Rae Dawn Chong joins the throng of name actors who sleepwalk through their parts - whether this was the fault of the part she was given or her own acting isn't clear, because trying to inject some sort of animation into this script might have opened the cast to charges of overacting. And they're the TALENT in this picture.

The plot's uninspiring in the way of nearly every French science-fiction film except for "The Fifth Element." I generally felt robbed of the time I spent watching this turkey. It shares all the weaknesses of the films from which it cribs, but shares NONE of their high spots.

Your mileage may vary if you like this sort of film. It sure has enough action to carry the attention of a hard-core fan of slasher sci-fi - say, if you thought the face-suckers and gut-ripping scenes were the high points of the "Alien" movies. If so, feel free to indulge, there's plenty of that stuff there to keep you happy.

It took three sittings to get through, but I made it through this low-budget sci-fi kick-boxing thriller. The two elements that really killed this film are the script and Gabrield Dell Jr's channeling of Rob Schneider (on crack). Mars is so full of clichés that the cast should have been given awards for keeping straight faces throughout the production. And Dell's character is so loud, obnoxious, and unfunny, that the single best line in the film, and perhaps it's most dramatic moment, occurs when Greunier tries to get him to shut up.

Shari Belafonte is beautiful and Olivier Greunier looks good too, but good looks don't help a bad script. Some of the acting is poor, but mostly its the absurd script that makes good acting almost inconceivable. Belafonte carries her lines better than the rest of the cast. Greunier is pretty good at looking apathetic, angry and detached, but I have to say that the whole casting non-actors as silent unemotional heroes thing is really wearing thin.

Knowing how low budget this film was, and knowing a little about how it was made, I have to say that the production values are really not that bad, and the directing is actually pretty good. The director, a tenth degree black-bekt and Undefeated Florida Full-Contact Heavyweight Karate Champion, has made some absolutely hideous films (The Watchers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096425/ being the worst example), but Mars is a big improvement over his earlier works. The film keeps a reasonable pace and doesn't try to do very much with what it doesn't have (i.e. a useful script).

Though I just finished watching this last night, I am struggling to remember the plot. Greunier is Caution Templer - a "Keeper" - a kind of corporate intelligence officer. His brother, also a keeper, has been murdered on Mars, where the company has a mining interest. Almost as soon as he gets to Mars to investigate, he connects with Belafonte, who has just made a startling and troublesome discovery, and people start trying to kill them both. There really isn't much more too it.

I recommend this film for kick-boxing fans, and would give it a very mild recommendation of low budget sci fi fans.

The budget for Mars was about $1 million US. That wasn't much money, and almost all of it went to the film's paltry CGI effects, and one explosion scene.

The film was shot by a first time director in an abandoned shopping mall. Most of the places you see in the film are converted retail stores like Gap or Foot Locker. The surface of mars is a truckload of sand that someone dumped in the food court and died red. If you look closely at the costumes, you can see that the futuristic breathing equipment is made from pool toys that were spray-painted black. You just can't make this stuff up.

Sharon Belafonte tries to make a comeback in this film... and fails. She looks good for her age though. Grunier does a good Terminator impression, as in, shows little or no emotion for the whole film.

Acting energy with a poor script, talent is a terrible thing to waste. This movie had two typical plot lines with no surprises. The main character starts off with an aggressiveness that promises a good movie, but it never goes anywhere. If you really have nothing better to do (snowed in for days), then it might be alright to watch this one once . ..

OK, so it's been a few years since I watched this movie, and I'll have to dig it out of my collection and rewatch it one of these days, however I have to say that while this movie didn't thrill me, it's no where near the worst movies out there.

Just in case you're at a bargain bin and you see, say, this movie and "King of the Ants", or "King Kong Lives", or maybe "Ghost Rock", then by all means take home Mars. It's the classic line you get from the second worse team in a league: "We don't suck the worst". I've definitely seen worse. A cop gets a message from his brother that sends him to Mars where he finds his brother is dead. With the help of a local babe he has to biatch-slap his way around to find out what's going on. So, it's pretty much a Hollywood plot retread, but as I mentioned it's sure not the worst you can do in a pinch.