You won't be disappointed!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I honestly haven't got a lot of good things to say about Red Planet other than it tried. It really tried. This wasn't meant to be a movie that makes you fall asleep instead of afraid and thrilled and to that end I feel like I must go easier on it. The people behind the effects deserve praise and really push this movie up in quality. it's just a shame that it is undercut by lazy directing and bland as unbuttered white bread acting with Val Kilmer putting in a lazy performance to rival his batman performance a few years earlier. At the end of the day I can't recommend this movie. The only time I would say go ahead is if your internet is down at 3 in the morning and this is on TV, and even then I would check what was one Adult Swim first.

Compared to "Mission to Mars", which was also released in 2000, then "Red Planet" pales. The storyline in "Red Planet" is just simply too far fetched to be anywhere near the other movie.The story in "Red Planet" is about an expedition sent to Mars to try to figure out a way to save the dying Earth. But the mission quickly goes awry and it becomes a desperate race against time.Storywise, then "Red Planet" wasn't as captivating or thrilling as "Mission to Mars" was. Sure, it had its moments, but in overall it didn't fare all that well.There weren't all that many special effects throughout the movie, which sort of was a shame, because it could have brightened up the movie, now that it was failing on its storyline. However, one of the special effects that should be mentioned as being fantastic was the fire in zero gravity. That was really impressive, and the movie is worth watching for that scene alone.As for the acting, well I can't claim to be a fan of neither Val Kilmer or Carrie-Anne Moss, but they were actually doing quite good jobs in "Red Planet". It was a shame that Simon Baker wasn't given a more outstanding character or a character with more impact on the story, because his talent was far from utilized in this movie. And the choice of Tom Sizemore, well that just baffles me - enough said.What didn't work for me in "Red Planet" was the fact that there was breathable air on the surface of Mars. And if these algae and insects were creating breathable air, wouldn't it require a much, much larger area of algae covered ground? And as such, wouldn't that green patch be noticeable on the surface of Mars from space? The costumes were quite interesting, as was the interior of the spacecraft. Although it was a bit too futuristic compared to its functionality. But hey, it looked cool.Mars itself wasn't really convincing, especially because (as I just mentioned) that there was breathable air there. And, similar to "Mission to Mars" they had failed to take into consideration the gravity issues, that it differs from Earth. And also during the ice storm, wouldn't you be able to see people's breath clearly as they exhale? Visuals are important when making a movie such as this.I am rating "Red Planet" 4 out of 10 stars, because it failed in overall to pass as a Sci-Fi movie with potential. It was just some nice landscape shots with a mediocre story that had rather large holes in the story. Not the brightest moment in Sci-Fi cinema.

(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.

At its time, all those 13 years ago, the film probably went by on its, for the time, palatable effects on a big screen, decent cast not totally phoning it in and fairly simple story of Martian exploration. Watching it now is to get the sense that in another 13 years it will be looked back as amusedly as It - Terror from Outer Space or any number of those 'guys in a tin can pretend to fly in space' sci-fi films of the 50's.It's truly bad. The story is as silly now as it was then, the science and technology as ludicrous (a robot with ninja moves!), the performances as theatrical. But what really has sunk it, I think, is the handling of cinematic space.Films set in space only bring to the fore, with more clarity than usual films, cinematic space as the main anchor of a story-world. 2001 got right a set of notions about the gravity of things in space, the viewing gravity that creates immersion, so every extravagant thing down the road was rooted in our first having been transported to space. I'm eagerly anticipating Gravity as the new template in this field.Here everything feels phony.An unfortunate contrast with the closing theme, so to speak, which is how god, what we call god, is the willingness to not give up, on close ones and otherwise, and this willingness is nothing else than not losing track/sight of the presence of another human being in space, a matter of persisting vision. When the female captain in the end hurls herself from the main vessel, attached to merely a chord, to recover the sole unconscious survivor, this should have been a powerful moment to capture this commitment, had we been rooted as firmly as they are.