BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

arthurwest-07516 Red Planet came out when there was a rush for Mars films(there was also De Palma's Mission to Mars released the same year). This is a decent film featuring some good actors and fine special effect but the plot is bare. A group of scientists head to the red planet and something goes awfully wrong and they are stranded. Then it is a matter of time and life and death. I won't spoil anything for you but this is one of those in flight movie type of films that you watch and forget. Not bad- just average. (Decent science fiction adventure).

tieman64 "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".

Rainey Dawn It's not a bad science film but it's not a good one either. I liked to a degree - for the entertainment value. I think it's good for a one time watch if you like science fiction movies.********* Spoiler *********** It's a predictable movie - a group of scientists on a desolate planet (Mars) and they have a sentient robot with them AMEE. Something will have to happen to cause drama and action with the isolated group and what better to be the enemy than their own AMEE that turns on them. To add more to a space drama you will need to have something to go wrong - in the case of this film it's the oxygen running out.***************************** In spite of the predictability of the movie it is a good watch for those who have not seen the film. It is entertaining.6.5/10

Thomas Poole (No SERIOUS spoilers! Just playing safe!)From start to finish, this film is LAZY. Research is non-existent. Astronauts (and presumably scriptwriters) are too ignorant of past missions to know the name of Pathfinder! ("That rover, what's its name" is one reference.) The geneticist talks about writing code with A, G, T and P! (It is C not P.) How little effort would it take, to get such basics right?Why did non-fans of science try making a space movie?What an insult to the audience this travesty is.If you watch, enjoy your eye candy, the gleaming white futurism and the boobies. Stop with the dishonest reviews. Wanking to this film ISN'T anything to be ashamed of, but dishonestly praising the film for its artistic integrity IS!Even Mission To Mars had fewer errors, better dialogue, more point, and fewer people killed by bad science. I almost feel like watching it again, for a dose of sanity.Of course accurate science isn't everything in storytelling, but a bit of authenticity wouldn't go amiss. This science is so bad it would actually distract me from a decent story even if there were one; as it's only down to laziness I won't excuse that.When characters are saved or lost on the basis of fantasy, it does detract from my ability to care what happens next. There are no real, well-constrained problems to ponder, to guess how characters might survive; no judgement can be made of likely outcomes, on any basis but the most fundamental rules of narrative: Has a character been bad? Have they been redeemed yet? Will redemption require a noble sacrifice to save their fellow crew? Such basic (and vague) narrative rules are obeyed, but no peril nor solution is feasible, giving the whole story a pointless, vacuous feel.So don't confuse this space fantasy with science fiction; there's not a bit of science in it. We have unexplained artificial gravity, vanishing when the power does! It's only set in 2025! The FIRST manned Mars mission uses a ship like a futuristic luxury yacht inside, with ample floor space and bright white light. With Carrie-Anne Moss's side-boob shower shots so early, and unashamedly blatant nipple shots later on, it's certainly pleasing to look at; just don't expect plot that withstands any scrutiny. Examples follow...The opening's as clumsy as any set-up could be, giving a vague nod to the half-baked reasons why our blue- green ocean planet could be a less viable habitat than the destination –- a red dust-bowl with an atmosphere 1% as dense. A case of bad predictions? Well they claim the world was poisoned, beyond being saved, as early as 2000 -- the film's release date! However pessimistic your outlook, to suggest starting again on Mars is more hopeful than improving things on Earth is the kind of stupidity you can only learn in college. What a shame the makers had to cram in the popular ideology of the day. Is it not enough that humanity has a more certain future, the more worlds we colonise? We never know what the future holds. Would it be unrealistic to open with a mission to colonise Mars, without the drivel? Is it not something we want to do anyway?Ridiculously (and inconsistently) advanced technology with thin, generalised narrative themes, combined with those hot booby shots, convinced me this film was aimed not at a science fiction audience but at men who need to expand their porn collections. Lately we've been separating works of storytelling art from works of boob art, which I think represents positive progress for both. Had we made so little progress in 2000? Was this film behind the times? I pity boys of 14 who saw this with family, especially their mums. Even boobs could be wasted on those poor lads, who may have simply cringed –- a real shame.The characters are 2D and, for astronauts, astonishingly anti-intellectual and ignorant according to their unbelievable dialogue. Watch this film if you're too drunk/stoned to care about storytelling, and if you know no better science than the lazy researchers in the production team. Otherwise don't waste bandwidth - - let alone money -- downloading.Powering down to the planet at such an angle requires no equations to see its wrongness! Any intuitive understanding, or just a good eye for Angry Birds Space, is plenty!Technical restrictions on plot, regarding fuel and so on, feel inconsistent and arbitrary; they're cumbersomely received from the dialogue.This is the opposite of hard science fiction; it won't get people thinking about what advances might be possible, in what order; it won't make children draw space factories at Lagrange points, served by elevators from the Moon; it'll only provoke, "Wow! It looks really cool!", from the slow-witted and serve as masturbation fodder for Moss fans.Oxygen is the only acknowledged problem with breathing on Mars. Oxygen is found mysteriously higher than expected, thanks to plot elements I needn't spoil; this nod to the problem might appear sufficient to a poorly educated child. No mention is made of pressure, except to convey how bad a cyclone will be at one stage -- 840 millibars, lower than in any storm on Earth, higher than any pressure of atmosphere Mars could ever retain. Plus it conveys nothing, unless we know the usual Martian pressure for comparison. (It's presumably elevated above the natural half a millibar.)Many review it just to declare that they don't understand all the bad reviews. Lack of understanding is indeed necessary, for anyone to think this movie good.Some say it's feasible compared to other science fiction! WHAT other science fiction?! Star Wars was more credible! What do we know about technology a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away? Most of us know enough about our own solar system, and modern technology, to chortle at this cacophony of lazy errors.