Review – Red Planet

Val Kilmer and Carrie-Ann Moss head the cast in this umpty-millionth retelling of humanity’s conquest of the fourth planet in our solar system. Sadly, the premise isn’t the only thing in this movie that’s been done before. Its worst aspect is that great cliché of action flicks that have to fill 90 minutes of screen time with 20 minutes’ worth of plot: the story depends for the most part on a seemingly endless parade of unlikely mishaps that keep our heroes hopping from one catastrophe to the next. It doesn’t help that the characters themselves are such cardboard cut-outs that it’s hard to care if they live or die even the first couple of times they’re imperiled. By the 20th or so I found myself praying for death (theirs or mine, I didn’t much care which). The special effects were good, but much more I can’t really say in favor of this stinker. See if desperate