Mars - The Dark Secret

OK, so it's been a few years since I watched this movie, and I'll have to dig it out of my collection and rewatch it one of these days, however I have to say that while this movie didn't thrill me, it's no where near the worst movies out there.

Just in case you're at a bargain bin and you see, say, this movie and "King of the Ants", or "King Kong Lives", or maybe "Ghost Rock", then by all means take home Mars. It's the classic line you get from the second worse team in a league: "We don't suck the worst". I've definitely seen worse. A cop gets a message from his brother that sends him to Mars where he finds his brother is dead. With the help of a local babe he has to biatch-slap his way around to find out what's going on. So, it's pretty much a Hollywood plot retread, but as I mentioned it's sure not the worst you can do in a pinch.

This has to be one of the worst movies I have seen. I generally like science fiction and was interested in it because it was a Mars based movie. It was hard to completely watch it though. The acting was poor and the editing was horrible. Scenes would cut to other scenes or jump around making it hard to follow the movie. The story line is really pretty weak with transparent characters and very little plot. It is pretty easy to predict what is going to happen by the end of the movie. There are some interesting fight scenes but that is about the only positive aspect of the movie. This is obviously a lower budget made for video movie. But all in all do not waste your time. There are much better science fiction movies out there.

MARS is probably the most boring film you can find starring Oliver Gruner. NEMESIS was an okay movie (despite it being made by Albert Puyn), but this little "action"-movie is very boring.

The story is stolen from all other Mars-movies, and is of course about that evil corporation that has a mining enterprise on the planet. Gruner is to find out what happened to his brother, who was murdered two days ago. And that's about as exciting it gets...

The bad-guys have VERY disappointing dialogue and the script is poorly written. The main idea is not at all bad. The production could have been so much better with some re-writes. The cast isn't necessary all bad either - especially Lee de Broux (RoboCop) is nice to see, even though he doesn't have much to work with.

Gruner himself isn't all that bad either, but the lack of a good script, the bad directing, the VERY bad sets and props and especially the terrible dialogue is making this film a very boring and very bad movie. Yes, it is in the league of Creepozoids and Timewalker.

I give this film 1 out of 10.

There is a lot of terribly negative reviews of this movie. I can certainly see why. There are parts of this movie which seem incoherent, unnecessary and silly; I will not lie. The Plot is thin, but the Protagonist, Caution Templar, (Olivier Gruner) gives a performance that is on par with the likes of Chuck Norris or Steven Segal. That may not be your forte, and that is fine. If it isn't, then you may wish to watch something else, if however you like seeing the protagonist kick butt all the way through and not even get touched, this might be for you. Caution Templar is a member of a Mining Company's police force. His brother was as well. Caution is there to investigate his brother's disappearance and death. He kick-boxes his way through henchmen and finds out why his brother is killed. On his way he meets Doc Halliday (Shari Bellfonte) and they work together. He also meets an irritating sidekick and I was thankful to see he didn't have much in the movie. This is a C+ movie. It is not ground breaking stuff by far, but given the facts in the trivia, that this movie was shot in an old shopping mall on 1 million dollars budget and a short time, it is not terrible. It will not compete with Total Recall or other A list Mars movies, but it is like your first car, rough around the edges, but gets you there. It is worth your time if you can see past a few faults.

It took three sittings to get through, but I made it through this low-budget sci-fi kick-boxing thriller. The two elements that really killed this film are the script and Gabrield Dell Jr's channeling of Rob Schneider (on crack). Mars is so full of clichés that the cast should have been given awards for keeping straight faces throughout the production. And Dell's character is so loud, obnoxious, and unfunny, that the single best line in the film, and perhaps it's most dramatic moment, occurs when Greunier tries to get him to shut up.

Shari Belafonte is beautiful and Olivier Greunier looks good too, but good looks don't help a bad script. Some of the acting is poor, but mostly its the absurd script that makes good acting almost inconceivable. Belafonte carries her lines better than the rest of the cast. Greunier is pretty good at looking apathetic, angry and detached, but I have to say that the whole casting non-actors as silent unemotional heroes thing is really wearing thin.

Knowing how low budget this film was, and knowing a little about how it was made, I have to say that the production values are really not that bad, and the directing is actually pretty good. The director, a tenth degree black-bekt and Undefeated Florida Full-Contact Heavyweight Karate Champion, has made some absolutely hideous films (The Watchers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096425/ being the worst example), but Mars is a big improvement over his earlier works. The film keeps a reasonable pace and doesn't try to do very much with what it doesn't have (i.e. a useful script).

Though I just finished watching this last night, I am struggling to remember the plot. Greunier is Caution Templer - a "Keeper" - a kind of corporate intelligence officer. His brother, also a keeper, has been murdered on Mars, where the company has a mining interest. Almost as soon as he gets to Mars to investigate, he connects with Belafonte, who has just made a startling and troublesome discovery, and people start trying to kill them both. There really isn't much more too it.

I recommend this film for kick-boxing fans, and would give it a very mild recommendation of low budget sci fi fans.