After some rubber-knife stabs at human interest, techno-babble, and metaphysics, this space opera settles down to the nuts-and-bolts business of the first manned mission to Mars, in preparation for the wholesale evacuation of Earth in the mid-21st Century. An advance seeding of the planet with oxygen-generating algae has failed to produce a breathable atmosphere. Why? There is an enticing mystery element: what happened to all that algae? (And later: how, in the absence of the algae, are the astronauts able to breathe on Mars after all?) There is also a renegade robot named AMEE, a sort of mobile and prehensile HAL. There is none, however, of the pretentiousness of Mission to Mars (not to mention its prototype, 2001), and very little of the ickiness of Alien and its ilk. In short: for addicts only. They will likely be disappointed, but they alone will be initially and temporarily interested. With Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, Simon Baker, Benjamin Bratt, and Terence Stamp; directed by Antony Hoffman. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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