n the year 2020, astronaut Jim McConnell (Sinise) is an emotional wreck
over the death of his astronaut wife, whose need for care cost him the
chance to be the first man on Mars. But he's happy that his longtime
partner Luke Graham (Cheadle) will have the honor. "Mars is yours now,"
McConnell tells his friend. "Go get it."
Aboard the World Space Station orbiting the Earth, McConnell runs the
command center for Graham's Mars One mission. McConnell works with fellow
astronauts Woody Blake (Robbins) and Blake's wife, Terri Fisher (Nielsen). It's taken six months for Graham's crew to arrive at Mars, and another
seven to establish a camp and routine in the Cydonia Region. That's when
they discover an anomalous reading from a nearby volcano.
Traveling via rover to the base of the mountain, the crew hears odd
throbbing sounds. They fire up a radar gun and aim it at the mountain.
Suddenly, all sound ceases. The wind picks up, debris swirl, and an
immense vortex forms over the summit.
As the force of the tornado builds, Graham watches in horror as his crew
members are sucked up and lost. Before he can escape, he is buried under red
rock. Back on the World Space Station, McConnell and his team receive a last
message from Graham before the signal is lost. "They're all dead," he says.
Six months later, McConnell and his crew arrive at Mars
in the immense Mars Two recovery ship. As they view the planet from above,
they note gigantic swirling storms spreading across the surface. While the crew is preparing to enter Mars orbit, disaster strikes in the form of
micro-meteors. The crew must engage in a risky maneuver to abandon ship in order to
make it to the planet surface. There they must confront a mystery more profound than any in history.
Going where everyone has gone before
Director Brian De Palma, who has built a career in part out of aping the
style and substance of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, takes on hard science
fiction for the first time in Mission to Mars. The film is an
homage to classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close
Encounters of the Third Kind. But although De Palma shows considerable
visual wit in Mission to Mars, the movie fails because of cheesy
dialogue, excessive sentimentality, credibility-straining sequences and a
truly cornball finish.
Though the filmmakers have tried to avoid the clichés of previous space
travel movies, Mission to Mars feels much like its 1950s
progenitors, especially Destination Moon. But its two primary
segments--the high-tech rescue mission and the mystical third act playing
off the myth of a face on Mars--fail to mesh into a coherent whole. The excellent cast has little to do but contend with the special effects, though Nielsen seems overmatched by the emotional demands of her
role.
De Palma shows his trademark dynamic visual style with vertiginous
camera movements, meant to convey the feel of zero gravity, and awe-inspiring
vistas of the red planet. And the visual effects, by Industrial Light and
Magic and Dream Quest Images, are eye-popping.
Throughout, there are echoes of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, right
down to the design of the space helmets and ships, as well as in the
carefully composed images. Such comparisons hurt M2M, which has none
of Kubrick's subtlety or poetry. Similarly, De Palma has torn a page from Steven Spielberg's
playbook for the last act of the movie, which is meant to evoke
wonder and hope, but instead elicits derisive laughter.
It's too bad, because a lot of painstaking effort went into the making
of this movie. The Mars mission, based in part on Robert Zubrin's books
Mars Direct and The Case for Mars, feels like the real deal,
and Ed Verreaux's production design, based on NASA-approved ideas, is
top-rate. The verisimilitude is aided by the work of former space shuttle
astronaut Story Musgrave, who helped train the actors in zero-gravity
movement, among other things.
Whatever artistic pretensions De Palma may have had, though, it's
clear Mission to Mars is meant to make money. How else to explain
the use of blatant product placements such as Dr. Pepper and M&M candies as
central plot devices?
-- Patrick
od (Garner) has grown weary of a couple of his inventions: humankind and the planet Earth. Even though he is quite impressed with some of humanity's accomplishments, such as toaster pastries and twist-off caps, God has become increasingly frustrated and tired of watching his creations sink ever lower into unhappiness, immorality and idleness. Or he could just be spending too much time in Detroit. For it is while he's hanging around a Detroit auto show with his old friend and former employee Lucifer (Cumming) that God decides he should probably chuck the whole world in the garbage and start afresh.
The Devil is thrilled with God's apocalyptic plan and offers his full support. But God figures it's only fair to give humanity one last chance to prove its worth. And as he is a "sporting deity," he agrees to let the Prince of Darkness choose one person whose actions will determine the destiny of every last human soul. Jumping at the chance, Lucifer looks only as far as the nearest bar stool and selects Bob Allman (Stewart), a cynical and somewhat irresponsible autoworker who is trying his best just to make ends meet and raise a family. Needless to say, Bob doesn't exactly want the job of redeemer of a world turned icky, but he doesn't exactly have a choice. God and the Devil have already shaken on it, and the fate of the world is now in Bob's hands.
To make Bob's task even more daunting, the Devil makes it clear that he has no intention of playing fair. Lucifer gleefully tries to trip up Bob at every turn, hoping to force him and all of God's children down the path of eternal damnation. Fortunately, God does manage to drop in on Bob once in a while to nudge him in the right direction, but will it be enough? Can Bob save the world? Or should humanity, as God puts it, "not make any long-term plans"?
The geek shall inherit the Earth
If nothing else, God, the Devil and Bob definitely has its own quirky take on its two best-known characters. God is depicted as a kindly, mellow Jerry Garcia look-alike, always sporting shades and never wearing socks. And while the Devil also tends to opt for casual dress, he is much more fastidious and whiny. The two of them are also refreshingly chummy for eternal adversaries. They hang out at auto shows and meet for dinner. In one episode, God even brings the Devil a get-well plant when he's sick in bed with the measles.
These two characters and their relationship is by far the most fun and original aspect of the show. They are also extremely well voiced. Garner is nicely understated and wry as the lackadaisical lord of lords, and Cumming's Lucifer is delightfully insecure and fussy one second and full of hellish fury the next. Bob, on the other hand, is a bit of a bore. While French Stewart has some great moments, he mostly sounds flat and detached, as if he can't seem to figure out who Bob is yet.
One of the best things God, the Devil and Bob has going for it is that it is in precisely the right format. Animation offers limitless visual possibilities for an epic, zany battle between ultimate good and ultimate evil. Unfortunately, the three episodes sent for preview aren't entirely successful at realizing that potential. While the writing is clever and the performances are solid, the animation is a bit on the shoddy side--not actually bad, just not as good as it should be given what's out there these days. Still, the potential is there and the show is pretty darn funny as is. So, even if the animation is never brought up to the standard set by the show's other strengths, well let's just say, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Even though there were several good laughs in this show, my biggest crack-up came while watching the credits. They actually have a priest and a rabbi listed as theological consultants. What, couldn't they just ask God?
-- A.C.
fter a brief run on the USA Network in the summer of 1999, the hip and frenetic GvsE was put on hiatus. But like its heroes, the show has been resurrected for a second chance at life, this time on SCI FI.
Retitled good vs. evil, the show centers around Chandler Smythe and Henry McNeil, two guys who were both murdered but who have been brought back to life to fight evil on behalf of the Almighty Corps, a kind of God-sponsored covert police force. It's the Corps' job to fight Morlocks (demons) and Faustians, humans who have sold their souls to Satan in return for the things people typically sell their souls for: fame, fortune, all that. Ideally the Corps wants to convince Faustians to renunciate--give up what they've gained in order to get back their souls. Of course, few Faustians are willing, and most put up a fight. Agents of the Corps have no special powers; they're completely mortal. And they're forbidden to have any contact with their loved ones.
"Nurse Evil," the debut episode on SCI FI, finds Chandler in hot pursuit of a Morlock. He pretends he's a policeman in order to commandeer a man's car, but unfortunately the man is a real cop and Chandler is nailed. At his trial, harried and humiliated by the prosecutor, Chandler tells all--about the Corps, the Morlocks, everything. He's promptly thrown into the Happy Acres asylum. There he meets Anna-Lise Vokavich, who also knows about the Corps and claims she was put in the asylum because of that knowledge. It seems unlikely, but when Henry does some checking, the Corps won't discuss the matter. They also seem unwilling to make any move toward springing Chandler. What dark secret is worth keeping two innocent people locked away forever?
Not doing too bad at all
"Nurse Evil" takes up right where GvsE left off, and it's a good thing because it allows the new episodes to draw on the web of relationships and history that GvsE developed. Consequently the two episodes provided for preview are far more than just the overly stylized, testosterone-heavy action fests that characterized early GvsE. The stories are complex, draw deeply on the characters' emotions and needs, and challenge them to rise above being simply the Mod Squad on jihad.
But the show retains all of its feverish and chaotic style--a heavy funk score, grainy flashbacks and intentionally old-fashioned effects. When anyone drives a car, the scene looks straight out of the '70s. The vehicle is obviously not moving, just sitting in front of a blue screen. But the camera never stops moving, swinging from person to person, jogging and jittering about. Scene and angle cuts flicker by at an exhausting pace. This is the perfect show for the Attention Deficit Disorder crowd.
The dialogue is snappy without trying too hard and the acting, especially from Rohner and Brooks, is quite good. More importantly it's sincere, despite the show's camp attitude. The worst aspect is the Morlocks' makeup job, which looks like store-bought fake scars slathered in Vaseline. Not scary. They could learn something from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But really, eerie isn't the tone this show is striving for. Most of the events happen in the bright sunshine of Los Angeles, not in shadow, and somehow this makes the danger feel more real, more intense. And frankly the show is more realistic than the average demon-hunting program. When people fight in good vs. evil, they bleed; when they get shot, they die.
Honestly, I didn't care for this show at all when it first aired, but this new incarnation is fun and poignant. I'm looking forward to more.
-- Brooks
n the year 2020, astronaut Jim McConnell (Sinise) is an emotional wreck
over the death of his astronaut wife, whose need for care cost him the
chance to be the first man on Mars. But he's happy that his longtime
partner Luke Graham (Cheadle) will have the honor. "Mars is yours now,"
McConnell tells his friend. "Go get it."
od (Garner) has grown weary of a couple of his inventions: humankind and the planet Earth. Even though he is quite impressed with some of humanity's accomplishments, such as toaster pastries and twist-off caps, God has become increasingly frustrated and tired of watching his creations sink ever lower into unhappiness, immorality and idleness. Or he could just be spending too much time in Detroit. For it is while he's hanging around a Detroit auto show with his old friend and former employee Lucifer (Cumming) that God decides he should probably chuck the whole world in the garbage and start afresh.
fter a brief run on the USA Network in the summer of 1999, the hip and frenetic GvsE was put on hiatus. But like its heroes, the show has been resurrected for a second chance at life, this time on SCI FI.
