If Warner Brothers needs someone to blame for the dimal performance of Red Planet at the box office, they only have themselves. The trailers and media on TV made out Red Planet mainly as a game of hide and seek versus AMEE, a robot that has 2 modes - friendly and violent (guess which one is flipped on after a rough landing on Mars?). But while this is part of the movie, it is not the main theme, and I do give them credit because Red Planet is a hard movie to commercialize.

Red Planet doesn't contain mindless special effects to propel the plot, but rather a story-line that involves some thinking, character development that actually works, and acting that is genuine. Taking place in the not-so-distant future (2025), once the earth has been pushed to its limits of population and pollution, the only choice left is to colonize Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. Scientists had been sending up clones to drop algae on the surface, which would then help produce oxygen, along with building a habitat for the scientists. While the rest of the story should be revealed to you first-hand, Red Planet has its fair share of surprises, explosions, and close-calls.

I can see why Red Planet may have been trashed by most "critics" - it doesn't contain special effects that seem to have been taking over the theaters today. But rather, the plot encourages you to think, about science, about philosophy, about saving the earth today - not later. The acting is good, the special effects above par, and the plot is top-notch. I really enjoyed Red Planet, not because it had a cool robot, or all the computers could talk, but because it made sense. There was a lot of thought put into the storyline and the scientific plot development. I'm sure it takes a certain kind of person to like this film, and I just guess I'm one of them.

Genres: Sci-Fi, Action, Horror, Thriller
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 106 minutes
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