Ghosts of Mars |
  • USA • 2001 • 98m •    • Directed by: John Carpenter. • Starring: Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Clea DuVall, Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Cetrone, Rosemary Forsyth, Liam Waite, Duane Davis, Lobo Sebastian, Rodney A. Grant, Peter Jason. • Music by: Anthrax, John Carpenter.      200 years in the future a Martian police unit is dispatched to transport a dangerous prisoner from a mining outpost back to justice. But when the team arrives they find the town deserted and some of the inhabitants possessed by the former inhabitants of the planet.
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Review:
So the movie essentially is flashback of events which cuts away at times to other characters' perspectives. I liked this idea and I liked how weren't left in the dark as to what the other character's found while splitting up etc.
A young Jason Statham is one of the more important characters and he is enjoyable to watch before his constant fast-paced action movies like the transporter. Unfortunately his character is limited to being some soldier who only thinks about screwing the main character and is very vocal about it from the start. His action role isn't bad but his death was cheap and random. It seemed thrown in at the end so they could just kill of someone else to make it more dramatic about the main character. Personally I enjoyed Statham much more than the lead girl. She seemed bored with the role and just did it to be in a movie.
Ice Cube is also a main character in the movie who is supposed to be this dangerous criminal but the audience can tell from the start he is innocent of his murder charges. His character receives poor development beyond being just some guy who only looks out for his self and has no one that cares about (despite his brother who sneaked into the facility and died and trying to rescue Ice Cube...). I did like his final appearance and his closing lines are great, one of those moments in an action movie you smile at. However it does not at all fit with his character from the entire movie, nor does it show any reason why the sudden change in character. Also he mutters or something a lot so he is hard to understand.
The movie starts of decently with suspense and draws you in, but it falls apart once you see what's actually going on. The idea of the planet having some bacteria or demonic presence that possess invading species to kill them all off is a great idea, just poorly executed. The only back story is that the colonists discover a door on mars which leads to a mine shaft and out comes this cloud of stuff that possess everyone at once. That's it and it shown in about 15 seconds. The weird part is that one scene shows the demon bacteria infected the colony at night, the other scene shows it happening during the day, which is it? Honestly I'm not sure if it's a demonic presence or a bacteria, one scientist calls it a bacteria, the movie description on cable called it a demonic presence that posses people...
Anyway, the movie falls apart here. This bacteria apparently lives in a cave from unknown origins and spreads across mars via the wind (yes there is wind on mars true fact) and they take over a host immediately. The infected are like zombies, but they don't eat flesh and instead make weapons and do tribal rituals such as putting heads on stakes to scare off intruders. What would've been great is if they showed the colonists actually getting infected and killing one another or how the lead infected came to be the leader. We have no idea who this leader is or why he actually gets a sword and everyone else has clubspipes and wears face paint. We also do not get any explanation as to why he gets his own barbaric language that all the infected understand, yet cannot speak.
Furthermore, people are possessed immediately except the main character. You giver her space cocaine and now she magically has the willpower to resist the possession... while unconscious. Not explained, just happens. And the only way to get infected is if the bacteria cloud enters your body, but the only way that can happen is if? No not if you get bitten, but if you kill an infected so the bacteriademon can leave the host and enter your body. Interesting idea that backfires. You'd think with this new found knowledge, the soldiers would stop killing infected so they too wouldn't get infected or endanger other colonists throughout Mars and instead come up with a creative solution to trap all the infected or incapacitate them or cure them or something right? Wrong. Because they kill all of the colonists out on the railroad (which conveniently was built to follow the path wind) the bacteriademon cloud can now form again and float to the next town.
Also they say there are 200 colonists or so that are infected. I should go back and count how many they kill, but you'd think after 100 or so, you'd notice a dent in their numbers. Nope, in fact their numbers some how grow more than ever. And dynamitegrenades only takes out like 1-4 infected at a time yet can blow up a nuclear reactor to set off a mini a-bomb. Oh yeah, they use the oldest trick in the book. Blow up the nuke reactor to trigger a nuke to destroy the infected colony and stop the spread, but small enough so the hero barely escapes. Sound like Aliens to anyone else? No just me? Weird could've sworn that was the plot of Aliens.
Review by ShadowsBeneathTheLight from the Internet Movie Database.
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