REVIEWS

Allan Bryce, and Peter Washington take a learned look at some of the best new cinema, home video and streaming releases...

RED PLANET: LIMITED EDITION

(2000) 4K UHD Arrow Video. Out Now. Cert: 12

★★

From 1931’s Dishonored and Mata Hari to 1997’s Dante’s Peak and Volcano and 1998’s Antz and A Bug’s Life, Hollywood’s history is littered with examples of rival studios hitting on similar ideas for films at the same time. One such instance, in the year 2000, saw cinemagoers treated to not one, but two big budget sci-fi spectaculars concerning manned expeditions to Mars.

First out of the gate was Disney’s Mission to Mars, an uninspired work-for-hire job from director Brian De Palma that struggled to achieve lift-off with global box office takings of just $111m against a $100m budget. You’d think that would leave the gate open for Warner’s subsequent Red Planet to steal the glory; but despite costing less to make ($80m) to make, it fared even worse, taking a pitiful £33.5m.

The sole feature directing credit for South African filmmaker Antony Hoffman, Red Planet is set 20 years after humanity began terraforming Mars with oxygen-producing algae in an effort to escape an ecological crisis here on Earth. However, when oxygen levels on Mars start dropping suddenly, a six-man crew (well, one woman and five men) blasts off from Earth to investigate. Of course, as is the way, things don’t go entirely smoothly and when a solar flare damages the spacecraft, all but one of the expedition team find themselves stranded on the planet’s surface, dealing with dwindling oxygen levels, interpersonal tensions and a military robo-dog stuck in ‘kill’ mode.

It’s not exactly hard to see why Red Planet failed to win over audiences (or critics come to that) back in 2000. While the set-up might sound like a precursor of sorts to Ridley Scott’s The Martian, at best Red Planet can be considered a faltering step on the route to that film. This is a far stupider and much less convincing take on the idea. Worst of all though is how dull this movie is, turgidly plodding its way from plot point to plot point, to the point where the best fun you can have is figuring out which parts of the film were completed after Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore fell out and refused to appear in shots with each other. Terence Stamp threatens to add some philosophical interest to the story as a scientist who has turned to faith, but the film quickly puts an end to that by killing him off as soon as they get to Mars. Poor Carrie-Anne Moss, meanwhile, gets less than nothing to do as the mission commander, left isolated floating around in orbit while all the menfolk are off having ‘adventures’ on the planet’s surface.

A monumental waste of money and a good cast, Red Planet is about as bland and boring as a film about Mars could possibly be. The longer the story dragged on, the more this reviewer found himself wishing for a little more in the way of the sort of pulp thrills offered up by Angry Red Planet (1959) or even the unhinged craziness of John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars (2001). Sure, neither of them a particularly good films, but they are fun – something this sci-fi dud is desperately lacking in.

Extras: ★★★

Framed at 2.40:1 Arrow’s 4K presentation looks pretty great, finding plenty of fine detail in the 35mm film footage (even if this does tend to make the turn-of-the-millennium CGI effects look even softer by comparison). Brand new bonus features take the fsorm of interviews with VFX supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun (22 minutes); space suit designer Steve Johnson (11 minutes); and a visual essay by critic Heath Holland (19 minutes). Carried over from earlier disc releases are eight deleted scenes (14 minutes) and a trailer (two minutes). Rounding out Arrow’s Limited Edition is an exclusive collector’s booklet.

PW.

COLUMBIA NOIR #7: MADE IN BRITAIN (1955-1957)

Blu-ray. Out Now. Powerhouse/ Indicator. Cert: PG

★★★★

We shouldn’t really play favourites but here at Infinity’s HQ we just have a special place in our hearts and our wallets for John and Debs of Powerhouse. And I guess that Columbia also value their support because they have granted them licenses for some of their best old movies. In this instance we are talking about 1950s film noir titles that were made in England with imported US stars. Every one of the six films featured here is well worth a watch and at a tenner a movie that’s what we call great value.