| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
One of the most gorgeous science-fiction movies ever - and probably also one of the most realistic in detail and scientific extrapolation
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Earthlings beware: The dialogue and characters have less weight than bodies freed from gravity's grip.
|
| 70 |
Time
This isn't "2001," by a long shot, but for 2000, it'll do nicely.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Here and there an inspired shot makes the film come alive, and at least three of its sequences had me positioned well on the edge of my seat.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
There are times when it moves into the guilty pleasure zone.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
I can't recommend Mission to Mars.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Gary Thompson
It's low-energy, and it's also depressing to know that people are still listening to Van Halen 20 years from now.
|
| 50 |
Slate
He does gorgeous work, but in Mission to Mars he's only going through the motions.
|
| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
Plot-wise, this is strictly paint-by-numbers stuff.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The picture is equally long on eye-dazzling camera work and New Age sentimentality.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
You can feel the movie going wrong in the first scene.
|
| 50 |
Charlotte Observer
Trying to make sense of this shaggy dog story is like climbing a mountain with glass-smooth sides and quarter-inch toeholds.
|
| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
It's a wonderful piece of filmmaking, but once any mouth is opened the magic is immediately tarnished.
|
| 50 |
Film.com
For a good 40 minutes or so in the middle of this movie, De Palma is in his element.
|
| 50 |
Portland Oregonian
Dazzling to look at but dreadful to listen to, the film is a tug-of-war of coolness and dreck.
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
In the presence of profound questions, the filmmaker goes profoundly shallow.
|
| 40 |
The New York Times
There doesn't seem to be an original moment in the entire movie, and the score is so repetitive that it could have been downloaded directly from EnnioMorricone.com.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
The script is heavy on platitudes about friendship, but since there isn't a single fully fleshed character in sight, who cares?
|
| 40 |
Film.com
All such good intentions collapse by the third act, when Mission to Mars becomes a tediously late pastiche of chimerical nonsense from the early 1980s.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
Halfway through, De Palma literally explodes his narrative to orchestrate a superb deep-space float-opera replete with runaway modules, high-tech lassos, dramatic self-sacrifice, and, in the most surprising maneuver, a montage-driven modicum of actual suspense.
|
| 40 |
Newsweek
It's a gorgeous bad movie, the folly of a great visual stylist.
|
| 40 |
Film.com
The final scenes, which suggest an earnest science lesson presented by a weepy extraterrestrial in an alien planetarium, play like the work of an amateur filmmaker.
|
| 38 |
Miami Herald
A $100 million production of a 10-cent script, is so clunkily written, so bereft of any engaging ideas or emotions, you'd think De Palma would have sneered at it on first reading and passed
|
| 30 |
Chicago Reader
There are a few pretty good design effects en route, but not enough to compensate for all the embarrassments.
|
| 30 |
Dallas Observer
One can only assume all the, ah, good stuff landed on the cutting-room floor, because it sure as hell didn't make it to Mars.
|
| 30 |
Rolling Stone
What DePalma has never made is a dull movie. Until now.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
It features well-below-par writing, acting, direction, special effects and music, while oozing a nauseating New Age sentimentality that undermines any tension in the underlying story.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Something so sappy, no one would believe me if I told them. It has to be seen to be disbelieved.
|
| 20 |
Austin Chronicle
De Palma's film is a mess from its anxious start all the way through to its new-agey end, relying heavily on cribs from Kubrick and Cameron and even the recent "Apollo 13."
|
| 20 |
Washington Post
I'm not sure if it was that or the cloying script, but after a couple of hours of spinning around listening to this drivel I felt like I was going to barf.
|
| 20 |
TNT RoughCut
Marcus Sakey
Even more frightening are the miserable performances elicited from A-list talent, particularly Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise, both Oscar-nominated actors who perform with all the heartfelt conviction of Hawaiian-shirt-clad teenagers in a high school rendition of "South Pacific."
|
| 20 |
Variety
In outer space, no one can hear you scream -- of boredom.
|
| 20 |
LA Weekly
Otherwise fine actors such as Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise spend nearly two hours of film time stand-ing around like department-store dummies mouthing dialogue so wooden it's petrified.
|
| 10 |
Salon.com
Startlingly inept from start to finish -- it's atrociously written, poorly shot and edited and fatally unfocused.
|
| 10 |
Mr. Showbiz
As intriguing as the premise sounds, Mission to Mars hasn't a single moment of real suspense.
|
| 0 |
San Francisco Examiner
It's an experience as frustrating as watching Jeff Gordon drive a stock car through a bowl of oatmeal.
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