Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find that the post has become a charnel house. If you truly give this film the benefit of a doubt it will truly suprise you alot and i gotta say this movie was pretty damn good. It's not perfect for sure it has it's issues (especially some special effects and all) but it's story was interesting, the acting pretty decent and John Carpenter knows how to make a good and entertain action and sci-fi flick and this one is definitely that. (7.5/10)

John Carpenters second to last theatrical film is an entertaining sci-fi remake of his early classic film "Assault of Predict 13," but is sadly nowhere as thrilling or as original as his best films. The film's story was originally going to be a third Snake Plissken film titled "Escape from Mars" with the exact same story and Plissken in the Desolation Williams role, but with the box office failure of "Escape from L.A." that plan was scrapped. Instead, this film features a terraformed Mars run by women in a matriarchal society when dangerous criminal Desolation Williams, Ice Cube, is supposed to be transported out of the mining colony by tough cop Natasha Henstridge. What goes wrong is that the ghosts of dead martians are accidentally released, who then possess the colony's miners, leading them to lay siege to the few surviving humans, which includes cops Henstridge, Jason Statham, Clea DuVall, and Pam Grier, who have put trust in master criminal Ice Cube in order to survive. In the miss column for the film, the special effects are disappointingly cheap, it's missing director Carpenter's trademark suspense and instead focuses on action, and the film in general seems to have too ambitious of a scope for it's limited budget. However, in the plus column, the film does feature a cool cast, music by Carpenter and Anthrax, and does feature Carpenter's trademark Howard Hawksian storytelling callbacks. Although this is certainly one of Carpenter's weaker films, it's still not all that bad of a film and is still entertaining.

Look, I know we're supposed to hate Ghosts of Mars. I know about its infamous Batman and Robin-like reputation. We all point at it and laugh. And you may press that big red cross in the corner of your web page in disgust but…I didn't mind it. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't call it a good film. In fact, the reason why I enjoyed it so much is probably because it was so bad that it ended up being pretty entertaining. Seriously, it was like it was trying to be bad. The hilariously odd narrative (there is even a flashback within a flashback within a flashback – flashbackseption) and the catastrophic miscasting…oh man! Ice Cube and his scrunched up face were abysmal, Henstridge and Grier appalling. It's not often you have to credit Jason Statham as giving the best performance in a film but that's the case here. And the set design made this pretty highly budgeted film look no better than one of Carpenter's independent films from the 70's. I'm fairly confident that this movie was intentionally cheesy, much like how Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China was a big-budget B movie on purpose. Even though he made it known that he was exhausted after the film, I never heard him complain about the quality of the movie itself. So perhaps Ghosts of Mars is a bit misunderstood? Either way, cheesy Carpenter is far better than boring Carpenter, so Ghosts of Mars is…worth a watch maybe? Am I allowed to say that? Best Scene: Just when you thought you couldn't roll your eyes any more than you already have, Ice Cube bursts in to Natasha Henstridge's cell in the final moments and the two charge out, with the film ending on one of the cheesiest freeze-frames I've seen. Plus, it ended like in the middle of the story. It perfectly sums up the ridiculous nature of the film.

First you think this movie is simple and dumb. But when you watch it slowly grows under ur skin. And then you are just glued until the end when it builds up ! There is some special energy which take this moviebeyond all 1000s of action/horror similar movies ! And when you see Carpenter is director, then u know why have this special energy that makes you not forgettin this movies as some crap ! If You lack energy and courage see this movie and you will be healed. Fpr example; there are possessions by ghosts but not just any ghosts--they are primordial Mars spirits ! And what is MArs ? Its planet of war ! So we have only movie in history which embodies energy of Mars. Its no coincidence that music is made by masters of metal music which is also as genre connected with MArs energy ! Steve Vai, Anthrax, Buckethead... This movie is special even if IMDb and Rotten T. is not very high, this movie is special, good and its CULT !!!