How is Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars different from
science fiction epics Contact, Apollo 13 and 2001: A Space
Odyssey?

Those movies were good.

Mission to Mars is a poor copy of its predecessors.

Mission to Mars stars Gary Sinise as Jim McConnell, an astronaut
who has been bypassed for the first Mars mission in 2020. But when
mission control receives an enigmatic transmission from the Mars
One crew, McConnell is enlisted by Commander Woody Blake (Tim
Robbins) to join him in the rescue.

The two are joined by Terri Fisher (Connie Nielsen),
Blake’s wife, and Phil Ohlmyer, played by Jerry
O’Connell. After 13 months, they get to Mars and abandon ship
after experiencing disaster after disaster. They lose one of their
crew members during the subsequent space walk, because the laws of
physics apparently only apply to certain characters.

The remaining three members of the crew find the Mars base more
or less intact. That includes a surface vehicle that slightly
resembles a NASCAR racer adorned with corporate sponsorship logos.
Inside they find the lone survivor, mission leader Luke Graham (Don
Cheadle). As they investigate the mystery of his crew’s
demise, McConnell and his crew find that the answer may lie within
the same path of one of mankind’s greatest mysteries —
the origin of life on Earth.

On the surface, Mission to Mars looks good. Its style and
cinematography scream of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. But there is
a point where homage turns into rip-off, and Mission to Mars goes
well beyond it. The disaster sequences in Mars’ orbit mirror
Apollo 13, yet give up ingenuity to product placement as a packet
of Dr. Pepper saves the day. At least the ending of Mission to Mars
doesn’t surpass the tacky ending of Contact, but it’s
not surprising that the movie tried. But it would be hard to do
— in Contact, star Jodie Foster travels billions of miles to
meet with her deceased father.

As a child, director Brian De Palma must have believed that the
moon was made of cheese and transferred what was left over to Mars.
This hokey movie is loaded with cheese. The visual effects make the
film look nice, but in what should have been an out-of-this-world
epic, the lack of substance makes Mission to Mars crash and
burn.
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