Stranded

If you dislike slow pace, and needs lots of explosions or adventure in your science-fiction films, avoid Stranded. You won't enjoy it.

But if you like slow, realistic, thought provoking sci-fi (films like 2001 or Solaris) with a twist of psychological drama, then give Stranded a go.

On a tiny budget, I believe the makers of Stranded have achieved a deeper, more interesting Mars film than any other to date.

Six Astronauts aboard the first mission to Mars, crash their ship when landing, and the only hope of rescue is a potential 3 year wait for another ship from Earth. With not enough air, water or energy to last for 3 years, the film asks - what would you do? The settings are believable, the acting a little varied (some accents might even be dubbed), and the special effects merely OK. It looks like a mere BBC TV special. But try not to be distracted by these quibbles.

Apart from an initial space travel shot or two, special effects aren't needed. The film's real strength is the tension between the characters as they sit huddled in the wreckage of their ship, and the harsh reality of their situation.

Even a science fiction twist at the end remains believable, thanks to it's understated nature.

I went into this film expecting a terrible b-grade sci-fi film. Instead, I found myself on the edge of my seat from beginning to end, and was frankly blown away by it's mature effort (on such a tiny budget) to portray a sci-fi scenario on Mars.

Highly recommended for lovers of sincere and realistic sci-fi drama.

I wish there were more science-fiction films like this one being made today.

I can't understand all the negativity towards this flick! Here's a modest little film that doesn't depend on huge special effects and gratuitous action sequences in order to tell a cracking little story, with enough twists and turns to keep an old sci-fi fan like myself guessing until the end.

The premise is certainly nothing we haven't had before (think "Mission to Mars", or "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"), but this particular storyline was dense and well paced, no loose ends, everything for a purpose.

The other aspect of the movie I liked was the atmosphere that it managed to build through, what I think, are all the things that people have criticized it for.

It had a sense of calm, other-worldliness, to which the non-US accents, and at times off-beat delivery by some of the actors contributed. The dialog is more naturalistic than in a big-budget Hollywood action sci-fi flick, and this may be why some people found it "weird".

Some of the dialog was a bit corny, but I think deliberately - a little tip of the hat to earlier tales of that ilk (one of the characters conspicuously starts quoting from "John Carter of Mars" at one point, and we feel we're in an entirely different movie for a moment)

The sedate narration from the main actress, the gorgeous locations shots, and even the interior of the Martian complex with its mysterious technology, all contributed to a dream-like and alien quality invoked by this movie.

Great fun!

Rating - 10 out of 10.

I originally rented this movie as something to watch while my mom and sister watched "Must Love Dogs" in the other room. Within ten minutes I found myself preferring the chick flick. The opening scene of the movie was all I needed to realize I had just wasted five and a half bucks. The film begins with a newscast in which a reporter sets the scene for the rest of the film. A good idea, right? Except that the reporter delivers in a deadpan. He says, "This is a historic moment" in a voice you'd probably expect to hear in a lecture on earwax. The rest of the movie follows this pattern to the point where I wanted to throttle the lead actress while screaming, "Have you even READ the script?" In short, I've seen beer commercials with better acting, better writing, better special effects, and better story lines.

Once you get past the first 20 minutes, which contains the worst of the acting and the expository dialogue that invariably that starts with "As you know, Mars/the spaceship/our oxygen supply...," this is an enjoyable and intelligent movie. Actually, with the proviso that this is indeed science fiction with regard to the more fantastic elements, they made a better fist of the science and technology than any of the Hollywood blockbusters about Mars. The production values are surprisingly high, although real space nerds will notice that the interior of the mars landing spaceship bears more than a passing resemblance to a shuttle mock up and Blake's 7 fans will notice the wandering-down-the-same-corridor-with-different-lighting trick.

These days sci-fi tends to be all about action, gleaming spaceships, and aliens with wrinkly tentacles. No fantasy, no mystery, no bizarre unknown. Action flicks or relationship dramas set in space. That's not my idea of sci-fi.

This film takes its time. We spend a good chunk of the film watching the crew crash-landed on Mars without enough supplies, trying to figure out what to do. It takes a long time before we get to the mystery, and for once, we don't get to see the dwarf behind the curtain. If this were a Hollywood film, all of Stranded would be cut down to about 15 minutes, and the rest of the film would be an action film where the surviving crew are being chased by some lame baddie, maybe a crew member gone mad, or some rusty martian janitorial robot with a few screws loose.

I like the film. Make no mistake, it has a lot of BAD things about it. A few awful casting choices, amateurish directing, and absolutely awful voice-over narration. The first five minutes are so awful you wouldn't believe it. But once the film gets underway, there's enough good to it to let you ignore the bad.

If you like Hollywood sci-fi, don't watch this film because you'll absolutely hate it. But if you like films such as 2001, Solaris, and THX-1138, then you might want to give this film a chance. By no means is it up to the standards of such masterpieces, but it's far more memorable and interesting than any other Mars-flick made in recent years.