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Entertainment
Weekly
From
Entertainment
Weekly. 2-12-00
Mission
to Mars
starring Gary Sinise, Tim
Robbins, Don Cheadle,
Connie Nielsen, Jerry
O'Connell directed by Brian De Palma
What's
the big deal? The race to the red planet is on!
release date March 10
So what is Robbins -- political activist, serious
actor, and agitprop auteur -- doing in a popcorn
flick about a troubled trip to the angry red planet?
''My
kids have been wanting me to do anything in which
I have an opportunity to have a little doll made,''
says Robbins, who's long wanted to act in an action-adventure
with smarts. But he may have picked ''too'' smart
for his kids; De Palma's NASA endorsed production
is so steeped in space-travel science, it's more
likely to spawn telescopes than toys. Still, Sinise
assures us there are thrills aplenty.
''It
really combines the science of '2001' and the emotion
of 'Apollo 13,''' says Sinise, who starred in the
latter. ''If we spent all our time explaining how
we got there, the movie would be 10 hours long.''
Hustling
to beat Warner Bros.' similarly themed ''Red
Planet'' to theaters, De Palma actually finished
ahead of schedule. None of that pressure was felt
by the actors, but they did have other things to
sweat through, like stifling-hot space
suits and the nauseating wirework required to
simulate zero gravity. While Sinise survived the
special effects by tapping his ''Apollo 13'' astronaut
training, Robbins says his own prior experience
with F/X was limited to the infamous 1986 flop,
''Howard the
Duck.''
Wow,
Tim, most people have forgotten you were in that.
What possessed you? ''Oh, why did I even bring it
up? Let's not even talk about it.''
BUZZ
FACTOR: 7 (Out of 10)
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