SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

PodBill Just what I expected

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

vfrickey "Mars" - a very hard name to carry off for what is at very best a "B" movie. After all, Mars is dramatic territory explored before by Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick (among many others).The writers of this turkey should have stayed home. It's no crime to realize your limitations and work within them - and these guys might have a promising future in the porn industry if they apply themselves. As serious screenwriters they seem outclassed.Olivier Gruner fails to impress the viewer as the protagonist Caution Templer, a lawman who must defend himself from attackers while investigating the mysterious death of his brother (also a lawman) on the Martian outpost Alpha City. (Fans of French science-fiction cinema will recall the classic "Alphaville," whose protagonist was named "Lemmy Caution.") The director and screenwriters have Caution Templar bulling through all sorts of unsocial encounters with bad guys with nary a scratch... and actor Gruner's delivery is such that calling it "wooden" is unkind to wood. Other action film actors' "wooden delivery" is leavened by compensating features. Next time, Olivier, please watch a LOT of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns and the "Dirty Harry" oeuvre, and see how HE gets away with it.Shari Belafonte turns in a better performance, but her character is a dim copy of Frances Sternhagen's frontier quack in "Outland" - without the dramatic scope of the original character. Rae Dawn Chong joins the throng of name actors who sleepwalk through their parts - whether this was the fault of the part she was given or her own acting isn't clear, because trying to inject some sort of animation into this script might have opened the cast to charges of overacting. And they're the TALENT in this picture.The plot's uninspiring in the way of nearly every French science-fiction film except for "The Fifth Element." I generally felt robbed of the time I spent watching this turkey. It shares all the weaknesses of the films from which it cribs, but shares NONE of their high spots.Your mileage may vary if you like this sort of film. It sure has enough action to carry the attention of a hard-core fan of slasher sci-fi - say, if you thought the face-suckers and gut-ripping scenes were the high points of the "Alien" movies. If so, feel free to indulge, there's plenty of that stuff there to keep you happy.

Vomitron_G With a title like MARS, you instantly think of movies like TOTAL RECALL, RED PLANET or even the slightly abominable MISSION TO MARS. Now those movies at least showed the planet Mars in all its glory. In Jon Hess' MARS we get a story that could take place anywhere. We only get two CGI top-shots of the Mars-based Alpha City in the beginning and the end of the movie, and we also see some actors stumbling around on a pile of red sand. The rest of the dull and clichéd story takes place on card-board interior-sets. It all looks real small and they don't even have enough extra's to populate the sets. The story itself is predictable involving a company-man (Olivier Gruner) arriving on Mars to investigate the death of his brother. But still the plot manages to be structured like any decent police-investigation story. You can immediately spot who the bad guy is and the plot is just an excuse for a lot of kicking and fighting. There's also supposed to be a big successful mining-company on Mars, but all we see is three man drilling outside. The bad guys just can't act and Olivier Gruner is incapable of showing emotion but does kick a few good punches (that's why he was great playing a cyborg in AUTOMATIC and a cybernetic human in NEMESIS). But please don't give him any meaningful lines to say, 'cause you won't be able to stop laughing with his straight face. In the end this movie even loses track of its own purpose. Is it about the drugs? Is it about the ore? Is it about the health of the Marsians? Who cares. But it will have you laughing when the bad boss is killed at the end. So, to many, MARS might be a waste of time, which it probably is. But still, I've seen worse. Mars belongs in that same bad sci-fi vein as PRECIOUS FIND, but at least that one was fun 'cause it didn't take itself seriously.

Mattias Best described as the poor man's version of Total Recall. And I'm not saying that a movie needs a big budget to be good, but in this case the script, the set and the actors are poor as well. It's like the cast from 'The Bold and the Beautiful' are trying to fill the shoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But what I hated most about the movie was the horrible side-kick. Save yourself the time, do something useful like watch paint dry or something.

Raven-34 Over all slow moving.Straight forward plot no surprises.The action scenes were as usual with this actor enjoyable to see. However would recommend that if you enjoy Mr Gruner's work to select one of his other movies.I personally spent most of the movie distracted by the dubbing over of the Mr Gruner's voice.