Red Planet (film)

''Red Planet'' is a 2000 science fiction action film directed by Antony Hoffman. The film stars Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Tom Sizemore.

''Red Planet'' was released in the United States on 10 November 2000. The film was a critical failure and a box-office bomb and is Hoffman's only feature film to date.

Plot

Due to the 21-century ecological crisis on Earth, for twenty years humankind has been terraforming Mars as its new home by sending atmosphere-producing algae to its surface. When oxygen levels mysteriously begin decreasing before the sensors died, Mars-1 is sent to investigate, under Mission Commander Kate Bowman with a crew consisting of egotistical co-pilot Ted Santen, science officer Bud Chantilas, mechanical systems engineer Robby Gallagher, and two civilians: bioengineer Quinn Burchenal, and terraforming expert Chip Pettengill. Rule-breaking Gallagher is not Bowman's first choice, and while the crew nicknames him "space janitor," the two are drawn to each other.

A gamma-ray burst resulting from a massive solar flare damages the ship as it reaches Mars. Bowman remains on board in order to manually launch the crew to the planet's surface and the automated habitat (HAB 1), and manages to eject the flames of a ship-wide fire into the vacuum of space and power up the ship before communicating with Houston. She learns that Mars-1 will experience orbital failure in 31 hours, but that they can restore function for a main engine burn and a return to Earth before that occurs. The landing craft is damaged and tumbles to the wrong location, and AMEE, the military robot navigator, is jettisoned. Chantilas is mortally wounded and tells the others to leave without him as they'll deplete their oxygen long before they can carry him to the HAB 1 and its medical supplies.

The landing party finds no algae on the planet's surface, then discover that the HAB 1 with all their supplies has been destroyed, which means they'll die when the oxygen supplies in their spacesuits run out. Pettengill follows Santen to the edge of a cliff to forgive him for crash-landing them, but when Santen mocks him and turns his back on him, telling him to die like a man, Pettingill strikes him, so he loses his balance and falls over the edge to his death. Petengill then tells the others that Santen committed suicide. As he slowly begins to asphyxiate, Gallagher decides to die quickly and opens his helmet, only to discover that Mars's atmosphere contains oxygen, more than the failed terraforming would have produced. Burchenal realizes they're not far from the Mars Rover ''Pathfinder'', which will possibly have a working radio so they can contact Bowman to at least tell her there is breathable air on Mars. As they cannot leave until the morning, the trio set fire to the ruins of HAB 1 to warm them during the night.

AMEE rejoins the crew, but when they discuss shutting it down and taking its guidance device, a damaged AMEE switches to a military protection mode, wounds Burchenal and leaves, intent on playing "war games" that will involve picking off the crew one at a time. When they reach the Rover, Gallagher is able to build a radio; Houston picks up their signal on a long-unused frequency and alerts Bowman. Bowman tells them to hike to Kosmos, a failed Russian probe 100 km away, and launch themselves by fitting into the rock sample container, but later gives Gallagher the bad news: the space will barely hold two passengers.

As they shelter in a cave from an ice storm, Gallagher tells the other two they'll be launching on Kosmos. When Pettengill doesn't believe Gallagher will sacrifice himself, accusing him of thinking he was responsible for Santen's death, Burchenal states he doesn't trust Pettengill. Meanwhile, Bowman receives orders from Houston that since it is unlikely the crew survived the ice storm, she is ordered to return home. Burchenal and Gallagher awaken to discover Pettengill has fled with the radio, then watch as he is chased and killed by AMEE. They recover the radio and find Pettengill's body in a patch of algae, and full of Martian nematodes. Burchenal deduces that the nematodes have been eating the terraforming algae and excreting oxygen, and he captures a few in a sample vial as they could possibly be Earth's salvation. Drawn to Burchenal's wounds, the nematodes swarm him and start chewing through his suit. He tosses the vial to Gallagher and rather than be consumed like Pettengill, immolates himself. The burst, which consumes the algae patch and nematodes, is seen from Bowman on the Mars-1. She is able to contact an exhausted Gallagher and motivate him to get to Kosmos: if not for Burchenal and the mission's sake, to do it for her.

Gallagher discovers the Russian probe's battery is dead, and right before the Mars-1 enters communication blackout he tells Bowman to leave, and that he should have kissed her when he had the chance. Gallagher then bids her goodbye and is resigning himself to dying when AMEE flies overhead and he realizes he could use AMEE's core as a power source. He lures and disables AMEE with one of the probe's sample launchers, removing AMEE's battery before it self-destructs, then launches himself into orbit. Bowman sees the Kosmos in the path of the Mars-1, aborts her departure and tethers out to retrieve and then revive Gallagher, who is in cardiac arrest. Later, as Bowman tells him that Earth now considers him a hero, she admits he's not who she thought he was, and they finally kiss. The film ends with her voiceover musing that on the six-month journey home, she'll get to know the janitor.

Cast

* Val Kilmer as Robby Gallagher, Engineer
* Carrie-Anne Moss as Lieutenant Commander Kate Bowman, Mission Commander
* Tom Sizemore as Dr. Quinn Burchenal, Geneticist
* Benjamin Bratt as Lieutenant Ted Santen, Pilot
* Simon Baker as Dr. Chip Pettengill, Terraforming Specialist
* Terence Stamp as Dr. Bud Chantilas, Chief Science Officer
* Bob Neill as Houston (voice)

Production

The production of the film (which was filmed in Wadi Rum in Southern Jordan and in Outback Australia) was the subject of numerous reports about the bad working relationship between co-stars Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer. Kilmer's reputation for being "difficult" was already well-established, and although the two stars had been friends, they fell out after Kilmer reportedly became enraged when he discovered that production had paid for Sizemore's elliptical exercise machine to be shipped to the set. Kilmer shouted, "I’m making ten million on this; you’re only making two", to which Sizemore responded by throwing a weight at Kilmer. The two were soon refusing to speak to each other or even come onto the set if the other was present, necessitating the use of body doubles to shoot scenes involving both actors, and their relationship became so bad that one of the producers is said to have asked Sizemore not to hit Kilmer in the face when the big fight finally happened – so Sizemore cooperated by punching Kilmer in the chest, hard enough to knock him down. Sizemore has since described the film as one of his career regrets, but also stated that he and Kilmer have since reconciled.

Release

Box office

''Red Planet'' opened at No. 5 at the North American box office behind ''Charlie's Angels'', '' Little Nicky'', '' Men of Honor'' and ''Meet the Parents'', making $8.7 million USD in its opening weekend. The film made $33 million worldwide against an estimated budget of $80 million.

Critical response

''Red Planet'' received negative reviews. , the film holds a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 103 reviews, with an average rating of 3.90/10. The site's consensus states: "While the special effects are impressive, the movie suffers from a lack of energy and interesting characters." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 34% based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C on scale of A to F.

Stephen Holden's review in ''The New York Times'' was almost entirely negative, calling the film "a leaden, skimpily plotted space-age Outward Bound adventure with vague allegorical aspirations that remain entirely unrealized."

However, in his positive three thumbs up (of four) review, Roger Ebert said that he "like its emphasis on situation and character" and that he's "always been fascinated by zero-sum plots in which a task has to be finished within the available supplies of time, fuel and oxygen". He notes that "like in 1950s sci-fi, the story's strong point isn't psychological depth or complex relationships, but brainy scientists trying to think their way out of a box that grows smaller every minute."

''Filmink'' argued it was "One of several expensive flops that helped kill Kilmer’s status as a movie star."

Music

The music for ''Red Planet'' was composed by Graeme Revell, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Kipper, Joe Frank, William Orbit, Rico Conning and Melissa Kaplan with performances from Graeme Revell, Peter Gabriel, Emma Shapplin, Sting, William Orbit, Melissa Kaplan and Different Gear vs. Police.

See also

* List of films set on Mars
* ''Sojourner'' (rover) (Real-life Mars rover depicted in film)
* List of films featuring extraterrestrials
* Mars in fiction

References

External links

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* {{mojo title, redplanet

2000 films
2000s disaster films
2000 science fiction action films
2000s science fiction thriller films
American disaster films
American robot films
American science fiction action films
American science fiction thriller films
American space adventure films
American survival films
Australian science fiction action films
Australian science fiction thriller films
Films scored by Graeme Revell
Films about death
Films about astronauts
Films set in 2056
Films set in deserts
Films shot in Jordan
Films shot in South Australia
Mars in film
Overpopulation fiction
Village Roadshow Pictures films
Warner Bros. films
2000s survival films
2000 directorial debut films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
Films set in the 2050s
Films set in the future
English-language science fiction action films
English-language science fiction thriller films
English-language adventure films