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MISSION TO MARS

MISSION TO MARS

Music Box Chicago

2000, 114min, 35mm, 03/21/2024 at 6:45pm

Brian De Palma

Seen it before (part of), 1st time on big screen and on 35mm

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How Do The Passes Work?

In an email, instructions are given to pass holders that explain how to pick up passes and get tickets for the showings. The Cinema Morricone series pass is a business card sized card stock piece of paper with an image on one side similar to a screen grab from Terrance Malick’s Days of Heaven.

 

Travel

I walk to the train and then I walk from the train to the theater. It’s cold outside. The Chicago spring weather is a constant medium chilliness that’s sometimes a bit windy that will linger though March and much of April. On the first day I’m early, too early, I try to get into the theater but it’s closed. A private party is going on in the lounge, a man opens the doors and asks if I’m here for the event, I’m not, No, I say. I stop and I recognize the man, I went to high school with him and his brother. His younger brother was in my year. He lets me in the theater, I pick up my card stock, my pass, and he tells me not too lose it because there is no replacement card. I go get a coffee across the street, a cappuccino, and wait for the first showing—Mission to Mars.

 

Thoughts on Movie

There’s just one good scene in Mission to Mars, it’s when Don Cheadle’s crew on Mars is attacked by some worm like sand storm. It’s so De Palma, the guy who’s in love with Hitchcock’s Psycho. It’s all there but then it’s gone and all that’s left is a bad script, jokes that don’t ever land, and the worst performances from every actor in this film. I don’t care for the bad CGI. I know De Palma wants reference Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey so bad but it’s not working. It doesn’t work and I think the 2000’s CGI kills the believably of every scene it finds it’s self in. That last scene with the alien, I tuned out. It wasn’t till that moment that I realized I have seen this movie before when I was a kid. There’s a talking down to the audience that this movie does. It treats the audience like five year olds, “It’s the Point of No Return! Literally and Physically and Look, It’s also spelled out right here just in case you missed it!” There’s no elegance. This isn’t the De Palma I know, he’s a master and this film is a dud.

 

The Score

I don’t think Morricone is used well in this movie. It’s a bad movie and the score is predictable, it doesn’t add, it’s redundant, and very average.

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