Mars

"Mars" - a very hard name to carry off for what is at very best a "B" movie. After all, Mars is dramatic territory explored before by Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick (among many others).

The writers of this turkey should have stayed home. It's no crime to realize your limitations and work within them - and these guys might have a promising future in the porn industry if they apply themselves. As serious screenwriters they seem outclassed.

Olivier Gruner fails to impress the viewer as the protagonist Caution Templer, a lawman who must defend himself from attackers while investigating the mysterious death of his brother (also a lawman) on the Martian outpost Alpha City. (Fans of French science-fiction cinema will recall the classic "Alphaville," whose protagonist was named "Lemmy Caution.")

The director and screenwriters have Caution Templar bulling through all sorts of unsocial encounters with bad guys with nary a scratch... and actor Gruner's delivery is such that calling it "wooden" is unkind to wood.

Other action film actors' "wooden delivery" is leavened by compensating features. Next time, Olivier, please watch a LOT of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns and the "Dirty Harry" oeuvre, and see how HE gets away with it.

Shari Belafonte turns in a better performance, but her character is a dim copy of Frances Sternhagen's frontier quack in "Outland" - without the dramatic scope of the original character. Rae Dawn Chong joins the throng of name actors who sleepwalk through their parts - whether this was the fault of the part she was given or her own acting isn't clear, because trying to inject some sort of animation into this script might have opened the cast to charges of overacting. And they're the TALENT in this picture.

The plot's uninspiring in the way of nearly every French science-fiction film except for "The Fifth Element." I generally felt robbed of the time I spent watching this turkey. It shares all the weaknesses of the films from which it cribs, but shares NONE of their high spots.

Your mileage may vary if you like this sort of film. It sure has enough action to carry the attention of a hard-core fan of slasher sci-fi - say, if you thought the face-suckers and gut-ripping scenes were the high points of the "Alien" movies. If so, feel free to indulge, there's plenty of that stuff there to keep you happy.

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.

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.

The budget for Mars was about $1 million US. That wasn't much money, and almost all of it went to the film's paltry CGI effects, and one explosion scene.

The film was shot by a first time director in an abandoned shopping mall. Most of the places you see in the film are converted retail stores like Gap or Foot Locker. The surface of mars is a truckload of sand that someone dumped in the food court and died red. If you look closely at the costumes, you can see that the futuristic breathing equipment is made from pool toys that were spray-painted black. You just can't make this stuff up.

Sharon Belafonte tries to make a comeback in this film... and fails. She looks good for her age though. Grunier does a good Terminator impression, as in, shows little or no emotion for the whole film.

A man with a bag is hunted down in Mars and killed by his pursuers. His brother, the keeper Caution Templer (Olivier Gruner), arrives in Mars to investigate the murder, and the killer, Ike Ringo (Lindsey Lee Ginter), sends his men to chase Caution. The obnoxious scum Buckskin Greenberg (Gabriel Dell) teams-up with Caution and he looks for the body of his brother at the morgue. Dr. Halliday (Shari Belafonte) is examining his body and memories, and Caution presses her for the information. He does not suspect that the CEO of the mining company, Phillip Clement (Alex Hyde-White), has a deadly secret and Ike Ringo is his right hand.

"Mars" (1997) is an extremely low budget movie with a terrible screenplay. It seems that it was shot in an abandoned shopping in Los Angeles and if this information is correct, explains the poor sets. The unfunny character Buckskin Greenberg is ridiculous and certainly irritates any viewer with his stupid lines and attitudes. The cast of this B-movie is not so bad (except Gabriel Dell) since they have an awful screenplay and dialogs to work, and most of the scenes are reason for a fight. In the 90's, this film was not so bad, but revisiting it in 2024, it is a dreadful experience. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Marte" ("Mars")