Best movie of this year hands down!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find that the post has become a charnel house. If you truly give this film the benefit of a doubt it will truly suprise you alot and i gotta say this movie was pretty damn good. It's not perfect for sure it has it's issues (especially some special effects and all) but it's story was interesting, the acting pretty decent and John Carpenter knows how to make a good and entertain action and sci-fi flick and this one is definitely that. (7.5/10)

I just caught another John Carpenter movie that I had never seen before, 2001's "Ghosts of Mars." This film does not have a very good reputation, to say the least; the Maltin book says that it is "routine, predictable and dull," and even my "DVD Delirium 2" reference book, which has a higher degree of tolerance for these kind of genre films, has nothing nice to say about it. But you know what? I enjoyed it, and I suppose that's all that matters, right? In this film, mankind has almost finished terraforming Mars by the year 2176, and there are primitive settlements and mining operations all around the planet. A matriarchy is in control of the government, and the Martian Police Force is comprised mainly of women, it seems. Now, a dangerous criminal needs to be transported from where he has been captured in one of those mining settlements, but when the police force gets there to deliver him by train, it finds all the miners dead and decapitated. Long story short: An archaeological dig has released the spirit ghosts of the planet, which have proceeded to possess the bodies of various Earth settlers, turning them into homicidal ghouls who look like members of the rock group Kiss! Yes, it's a pretty wacky conceit on which to hinge a film, and to the picture's detriment (it was co-written by Carpenter), we never do find out what those spirits are, or how they were imprisoned in their cavern. Still, as I say, the film was a lot of fun for me. It stars Natasha Henstridge as one of the cops, the great Pam Grier as her superior (Pam, sadly, gets killed off and beheaded pretty early on), Ice Cube as the main criminal (his acting style is not exactly Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, to say the least), Jason Statham as another cop, Joanna Cassidy as a scientist, and Rosemary Forsyth. The film is presented in a very unusual manner, with flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks...as a matter of fact, there must be almost a good dozen such interlocking flashbacks to be had here, with practically every character in the cast telling his or her remembered story. And you thought the Humphrey Bogart film "Passage to Marseilles" had a lot of flashbacks, with only three! The action in the film's final half is fairly relentless, and the FX are cheesily endearing. Some have complained that this film is basically just a rehash of Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," which itself was a rehash of sorts of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (a group of people barricades themselves in a building to ward off nasty attackers), and I suppose that this is true, but still, "Ghosts of Mars" is done on such a pulp/comic book level that it was hard for me to complain. Who could possibly be unhappy at the sight of Pam Grier in a leather trenchcoat talking tough, or with Natasha kicking ass on Martian ghouls? In all, great mindless entertainment; nothing serious, but a nice way to spend 90 minutes. And again, this film looks just great in high def and widescreen.

Set in a future in which humankind has colonised and terraformed Mars, a Martian police officer recalls the supernatural circumstances by which her entire squad disappeared, leaving her handcuffed, after a mission to escort a criminal went sour in this John Carpenter movie. The film has a reputation as one of Carpenter's weakest efforts, but it is a step up from 'The Ward' and, as usual, Carpenter establishes mood and atmosphere well. The central mystery is decent too and the abandoned Martian village that the policeman and her unit encounter is quite spooky. It has been compared to an Old West ghost town and there is an added tinge of danger in the air with all the unearthly red dust/dirt and gloomy Martian skies. Unfortunately the film does little beyond this to maximise the awe and wonder of the setting; the planet is so massively terraformed that gravity, air and water do not pose any restrictions. As such, it often feels like the story could have been easily set on Earth without losing anything. The narrative structure is also irksome. Not only is 90% of the film told in flashback, but there are also flashbacks within the flashbacks, which leads to the film feeling massively dragged out despite an under 100 minute length. The action scenes are pretty one-note too. And yet, there are still moments when Carpenter's genius shines through; the first person point-of-view possession scenes are very well done, for instance. This is not a great film by any means, but neither is it quite the turkey one that might expect for a film that put its director off movie-making for nearly a decade.

I'm a huge fan of John Carpenter. I love "The Thing", "Escape From New York", "They Live" or "Big Trouble In Little China" and he made many more great stuff. But back in 2001, there was this disaster, called "Ghosts Of Mars".One year after "Mission To Mars" and "Red Planet" already shown that nobody wants to see a movie about the mars, someone thought it would be a great idea to make another one. But this time it's not going to bomb at the box office, because it's a horror movie. Science fiction- horror with demonic zombie-ghost-whatever-creatures, splatter and Ice Cube in of the leading roles. What can go wrong?Well, many things... Too many things... No, probably everything.It's just unbelievable that this was made in 2001. The setting looks so f*cking cheap and awful. "Total Recall" from 1990 (!) looks much better. Not only the look is terrible, the rest isn't really better. The complete story is told in flashbacks. Not the best way to narrate a horror movie, because then the story is even more predictable. What makes it even worse, is that the transitions from present to past are just awfully annoying and poorly directed."Ghosts Of Mars" copies many stuff from other movies, mostly from Carpenter's own (good) movies: The character Desolation Williams (Ice Cube) is similar to the legendary Snake Plissken from "Escape From New York" and (unfortunately) "Escape From L.A.", but you can also see clearly parallels to Vin Diesel's Riddick in "Pitch Black". Then there are the point-of-view shots like in "Halloween" and there's also a homage (?) to Carpenter's masterpiece "The Thing": If someone dies, his ghost can switch the body, which is similar to the alien in "The Thing". Not a bad thing, but here we can see how awful and lazy the script is, because it's explained at one point and then the movie ignores it completely, except the scene has any importance for story, characters, whatever.But is it entertaining trash or something? No, absolutely not! The movie takes itself way too seriously and is not entertaining in any way possible. Just a big waste of time.