Rescate en Marte

OK, I'm only about 30 minutes into watching this on SciFi even as I type, and Tom Kenny is all over this thing! He has tons of screen time and lines up the wazoo, but he isn't credited! Watch for him on the quaint little launch control set as the "countdown guy". I guess he's supposed to be the capcom, but the launch director does most of the talking to the crew.

OK, I'd better get back to watching this delightfully high-cholesterol space-soap-opera.

That's what I would say if this movie had any redeemable merit whatsoever!

First, the good things: ....

Now the bad things: The acting was subpar, even for television. The script looked like they were winging it. The conflict did little to interest me, which doesn't say much for the lulls in the movie. The idea was completely unoriginal. Even the credits looked pasted together.

I'll elaborate. The conflict. I didn't feel, even for a second, any ounce of satisfaction or grip from anything this movie tried. Anything the movie attempted to do was undone by stupidity, and any progress the conflict made to the situation or the story was resolved in about five minutes, and everything was back to normal.

The characters were two-dimensional. None were distinguishable from the others in anything except for their jobs (one was a designer--that's all I could recall). Their character qualities were shifted around and changed so often, they had the consistency of water. I couldn't tell one character apart from any other aside from their looks, and even then I had a hard time.

How about the idea? It's been done to death. Mission to Mars and Red Planet both came out around the same time (maybe a little later) and both were by far this movie's superior.

This movie was just junk. You will NOT be satisfied, even if you're investing only your time. Avoid this at all costs. In fact, burn the copies you DO find. I don't want this movie EVER going around again!!! Possibly the worst thing I've seen. And I've seen bad.

For a low budget movie I didn't think this one was all that bad. I've seen worse, in fact I used this film to try to wash the horrible taste of Star Trek Insurrection out of my mouth. Compared to that, this is Dickens stacked against Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

However I am willing to admit that Escape from Mars has a few flaws. First and foremost the budget for special effects was about $6.50 plus what they could find in the change slot of local phone booths. This is probably what led most science fiction fans against this film. We're used to fantastic specials which create a real visual treat. To have that missing really hurts the film.

The second flaw is that the story, however realistic, is now standard for anyone who has read anything from the hard science genre. Whoever wrote this has obviously read Robinson and Bova as well as checked the NASA site every now and then. So I guess my complaint is that there were few surprises or new stuff.

Third is that the whole thing is shot on video which makes everything look cheap, like a news room set. There is little which looks realistic and one can feel a bit ripped off by the sets they have although I did notice a few nice touches in the background.

What saved this film in my opinion was the acting. Every actor in this film did a sterling job despite the problems. Many of us are used to some atrocious over-acting which is enough to make Jack Palance proud and me nauseous. Ironically it is the faults of this film which allow viewers to see what a hard job acting is. With limited special effects and poor sets you can see what normal actors see when they work. The large temptation is to over act but the entire cast bring out believable, human performances which is why I gave the film a 7.

Don't go out of your way to watch this movie. If your bored and nothing else is on, it might be a decent gamble.

Of if you like really predictable bad sci-fi with mediocre actors.

International group goes to mars and gets hit by a meteor shower while there. That's about the whole plot as the story focuses mainly on how the characters interact. Some people may like that but that's not why i watch a sci-fi film. The star is christine elise who plays lia, one of the two commanders. Two commanders sounds like an oxymoron to me but that's what they do. She's a cute little thing and very watchable. There's a Russian guy adropov, who sounds just like chekhov in the old star trek TV show but unfortunately doesn't have chekhov's charm. A really nauseating joe cool clown who flirts with the girls all the time. The rest of the cast is strictly cardboard. A low budget movie that i rate as C-.