|
It's 2020, and NASA has teamed up with the Russians and Europeans to further the space programme. The next leap for mankind is achieved by successfully landing a team of astronauts on Mars. However, the history-making crew soon runs into trouble when the mission's commander (Don Cheadle) and his crew are struck down by a freak storm.
A rescue mission is launched to investigate the tragedy and bring back any survivors. Co-piloted by Commander Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) and Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), four courageous astronauts set out on a heroic six-month journey through space where they face insurmountable dangers and discover that there is more than just bad weather on the planet.
While the effects are absolutely excellent, mixing computer, model and life-size effects, the plot itself lacks depth and leaves you feeling as though someone cut 30 minutes off the end of the movie while you weren't looking. Nonetheless, Robbins brings off a credible, albeit comical portrayal of an ageing astronaut while Sinise almost repeats his astronaut role from Apollo 13 as the guy that gets left behind, only to be called on when things go wrong.
Tagged onto the disc along with the film is an excellent 'Making of' documentary - which gives a fascinating insight into how many of the special effects and zero-gravity shots were pulled off - along with storyboards, mock-up animations, the compulsory theatre trailer and some DVD-ROM content in the form of some web pages and a few PC executables.
Originally reviewed in issue 15
by Chris Green.
Click
here for more books,
videos
or DVDs
that we haven't covered in Active
Media!
|
