A rescue team is sent to Mars to find out what happened to a previous ship and its crew. They eventually get to the surface of the angry red planet, to find a single colonist alive. They also find a sign of intelligent life from elsewhere that may be ignored at their peril. Other than one grim sequence involving Tim Robbins freefalling toward the Martian atmosphere, the movie is strictly a G-rated affair about first contact with benevolent beings from another place and time. I have always thought Gary Sinise as one of the astronauts was miscast here, but considering the films he normally appears in, here is one he can safely show his kids and grandkids. MISSION is like those kiddie sci-fi novels of the 1950s with their simplistic, garish covers, and plays a little like some of those simplistic sci-fi flicks of the 1950s, only with far superior visuals. Don Cheadle plays the surviving colonist. The ending will thrill 8-year-olds everywhere, and may be a little hard for adults viewers to swallow. So be it.
Review of Mission to Mars
