John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars

I actually enjoyed this one.And I didn't expect to. I gave it a pass when it first came our because my friends who had seen it said it was awful.The critics were saying it was awful.Everybody seemed to find fault with it (and, to be honest, there is fault to be found).Some rag on the Special Effects, some on John Carpenter's soundtrack, some complain there is too much hand to hand fighting.None of this bothered me when I finally watched it.I mean, the Special Effects weren't that bad, Anthrax, Buckethead, and John Carpenter gave us a driving soundtrack, and the hand to hand combat is to be expected when one is fighting a reincarnated warrior species who seem to be really into hunting heads as prizes of war.It has some of the flavor of Escape From New York, a dash of the humor of Big Trouble in Little China, and more than a hint of inspiration from the pulp magazines of yore like Weird Tales, and Jungle Adventures and so forth. What I am saying is that the spirits of Talbot Mundy, Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Harold Lamb are alive and well in this story.It was a delight to watch.Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, and Jason Statham make a pretty decent team along with Clea Duvall and Liam Waite.Pam Grier isn't on screen a lot but she makes her presence felt when she is.And as for Joanna Cassidy...well, what can one say about an actress who has played everything from a Replicant in Blade Runner !1982) to T'Pol's mom on Star Trek Enterprise?She manages to keep busy.and she is always engaging to watch.I recommend this one.

Ghosts of Mars is a decent popcorn action movie, but it's a bad movie on basically every level. If you don't mind seeing something aggressively stupid just to see some explosions, this one's for you.The setup: Pointless. Carpenter throws a ton of ideas at the wall, like apparently Mars is a matriarchal society now, but this doesn't matter at all to the plot. This movie only takes place on Mars to explain why Carpenter was filming in the desert with hilariously empty sets. The bulk of the movie takes place in 2 rooms and on one street. The entire rest of the film comprises about 3 rooms and one more outdoor area. That's it. All the setup, all the attempts at world building, and you're just staring at a handful of people handing out in a room for most of the movie.The plot: Zombies. Again, there's an attempt at world building, but this is a bog standard plot. A paramilitary team investigate a derelict compound, and it turns out zombies have murdered the locals. The team fight off the zombies when they're not busy infighting. There's also something about Ice Cube being a really famous criminal.So why would I watch this? So far my description probably seems really boring. But then Ice Cube throws hand grenades at space zombies. That's the real reason to watch this film. Natasha Hensridge (of "Species" fame) does some spinning kicks at the zombie. Jason Statham and Pam Greer are on the zombie team. It's a star-sudded cast with a heavy metal soundtrack. Some of the big action set pieces are a lot of fun, but there's never very intelligent. People run in a direction, zombies attack them. They turn around because John Carpenter only had the one street to shoot on, and now they have to shoot their way through the zombies again. That happens a few times in the film.But that sounds awesome. If "Ice Cube blows up zombies" interests you, definitely give this film a spin. But that's it. The worst part for me is that the leader of the Martian zombies is probably supposed to be screaming at his minions in Martian, but Carpenter never hired a language coach. So the guy just makes baby talk "Gah-gah rah-rah" sounds menacingly at the camera. Most viewers laugh out loud rather than being intimidated. The sets are cheap, the locations are few, the script is terrible. The only thing that gets the full treatment are the explosions - and they are glorious.Overall: A totally forgettable popcorn action movie. See it for the explosions and Ice Cube's one liners. Not for the script.

The movie's just fun. It tries to do this thing where the story is told out of order from the perspectives of different characters. Like, while you were doing that, I was doing this, kind of thing. Whether it was a good idea or not is going to depend on the viewer, but I didn't mind it. There's a pretty fat plot hole in the beginning (which I'll mention way lower marked "spoiler") that will make you go "well, why didn't they just do this??". Again, I can see this being a deal breaker for some, but honestly, the rest of the movie is just pure fun. I really enjoyed the action, the humor, and the idea of the enemies our main characters have to fight. It's not really thought provoking or anything, but generally it's just a fun action movie with very John Carpenter vibes right from the start. Definitely something to fire up if you're bored looking for a fun flick to watch.*Plot hole spoiler*So the team is tasked with transporting a prisoner back to the city from the little mining town via a train. They arrive at the town and are told that it's going to take 3 hours to TURN THE TRAIN AROUND... and that they'll be back then to pick up the team and the prisoner. Why the F did they not just turn around, and pick him up on the way back?? Would have saved so much trouble, and probably no would would have died. Aside from that, nothing else really stood out as a super obvious plot hole. I'm sure there's a lot to nit pick, but for the most part I had a lot of fun with it.

The DVD transfer is Anamorphice (bars top and bottom), good picture, sound and subtitles. Extras as listed here on the Amazon site. I haven't watched them. If it is a pure Adrenelin rush action filled film you want, and don't really care too much about the script or the acting, this could well be for you. The set up of the film is a bit distracting. Flashbacks and action from different character's viewpoints, but when the action really starts it is non stop - a bit too non stop for this horse. Plenty of fighting, explosions and general mayhem. Sadly the actors are either wasted (Pam Grier, Rosemary Forsyth) or are just wrong. Ice-Cube?? He is no Vin Diesel or Wayne Johnson - rather short and a bit chubby with zero charisma (he has made far better appearences - I liked him in "Anaconda"), Natasha Henstridge looks great and does exactly what you expect from an action heroine (she should have had top billing). I don't like Jason Staham - I'm sure he cares not a jot - he too does what is expected of him, and he is rather good. As is Clea DuVal and in a small part Wanda de Jesus. Not Carpenter's finest, but perhaps not as bad as some critics have written. It's fun, just go with it, and don't expect anything other than that.

John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars was exactly as I expected – rough around the edges and a marvellously entertaining and totally unpretentious action SF horror movie. Set in the second half of the 22nd century when Mars has been mostly terraformed this tale is told mostly in retrospect by Natasha Henstridge’s police Lieutenant, the sole survivor of a disturbing incident at an isolated mining town. The chance discovery of evidence of an ancient Martian civilization leads to some horrific consequences as hitherto dormant beings are released and encounter human invaders on their planet. Accompanied by a pulsating heavy rock soundtrack there are some exhilarating action scenes reminiscent of two of the director’s previous films – ‘Escape from New York’ and ‘Assault on Precinct 13’. There are some well-known actors present here – Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Jason Statham – all of whom buy into this frankly ludicrous screenplay but, as with all the actors involved, are fully committed to this superior B-movie, and despite some obviously clunky dialogue there is so much here to enjoy. Not a movie with artistic pretentions by any means, but with its wry humour definitely a potential future cult classic. I liked it.

I really wanted to like this very promising SF/action film - but I simply couldn't. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS.This film begins quite well indeed. On a largely terraformed Mars (air is breathable) governed by a matriarchate (!), a police patrol is dispatched by train (planes and choppers are absent from this movie) to a little mining town, to bring in custody a wanted criminal named James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube), just arrested by the local sheriff. But once the police patrol arrives, there is nobody to greet them there... And then the film begins.The cast is one of the few strong points of this film. The police officer in command of the patrol is of course a woman, the very lesbian Commander Helena Braddock (Pam Grier). Her trusted (but not interested by her advances) second in command is Lieutenant Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge). Under their orders are three more officers, the experienced tough Sergeant Nathan Jericho (Jason Statham) and two young rookies, Officer Bashira Kincaid (Clea DuVall) and Officer Michael Descanso (Liam Waite). Later in the film they will meet also another important secondary character, Doctor Arlene Whitlock (Joanna Cassidy).As we can see, there was a lot of screen talent here. Pam Grier (thank you Quentin Tarantino for raising her from dead in "Jackie Brown") is still darn hot even at 51! Natasha Henstridge is GORGEOUS - in fact she is the main reason why I give this film two stars, as it would still be a pleasure to watch her even in a commercial for camembert... Jason Statham was at that time still in the beginning of his career (he was billed fourth!) but he certainly already showed big promise - also, making him a subordinate of not one but two women offered also some good opportunities for dialogs... Finally Clea DuVall, with her unique, non-conventional kind of beauty and veteran actress Joanna Cassidy were certainly also assets.All of that however, together with the original premises and a considerable budget were wasted by the dirt-poor scenario, which the director should never have accepted in the first place, without a serious re-working. Therefore the one who must be blamed for the failure of this whole project is the director - John Carpenter. The man who made great films like "Escape from New York" and "The Thing", interesting flicks like "Assault on precinct 13", "Fog" and "Christine", comedies like "Dark Star", "They live" and "Vampires", as well as the burlesque head scratcher "Big trouble in Little China". And then this...In this film we can actually see some reminiscences of his earlier works, but in a very inferior version. "Desolation" Williams is a kind of pale (pun very much intentional) copy of "Snake" Plissken. The idea of a besieged police post in which cops must make an alliance with criminals reminds of "Assault of precinct 13" - but is definitely less well shown. There is a kind of absolutely lethal mist like in "Fog" and an enemy who can hide amongst people you trust the most like in "The Thing". And then there is also a kind of tribute to this great cult classic "Heavy Metal" (a film John Carpenter was not involved with), especially the last story "Taarna", with Big Daddy Mars being an equivalent of Barbarian Leader and Melanie Ballard kind of reminding of Taarna herself...Also, a great deal of lethal weaponry is used, which should in principle please action film freaks like me - you can check them in detail following this link to Internet Movie Firearms Database.But all of this is mostly wasted in this film because of rather stupid scenario, mostly weak dialogs (there is only like two or three really good one liners or comebacks), not so good action scenes, interesting characters dying much too soon, disappointing use made of villains and of the Martian armoured train and last but not least a very lame ending. Also, the original ideas mentioned in the beginning (terraforming, Martian matriarchal government) or in the middle of the film (possibility of discovering Martian ancient artefacts) are not developed. At all. Instead, the film goes at "full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes" pace into a "shootout, gore and F... bombs" direction - and then fails to deliver good action scenes...So bottom line, this is a huge disappointment and a waste of good idea, good actors and good money. Watchable only if there is nothing else and then only for Natasha Henstridge luminous beauty and nothing else. If possible, avoid.

Ballard and her team have an assignment of transferring a dangerous criminal named Desolation Williams to a prison in an outpost city on the planet Mars.But in a turn of events, a mining team on the Red Planet has unearthed an ancient Martian defence device that unleashes ghosts of the planet's inhabitants who in turn possess most of the workers.Upon arriving at the outpost, Ballard and her team, including Desolation Williams, must band together to survive the vengeful spirits bent on eradicating all human life on their planet.....It's basically Assault on Precinct 13 with a little bit of Fallen added in for good measure, with a lot of bad sets and bad special effects.And while its no where near as good as his early eighties efforts, it's a lot of guilty fun, which I fear a lot of people on here are afraid to admit.The cast are good, never really doing anything but argue, flirt, and occasionally fight, but its what you expect from the form of narrative, and the synopsis that accompanied the film at least six months prior to release.It's not going to win any new fans for Carpenter, and it does have a stench about it, but I liked it.

John Carpenter is a fine director and music maker. This is not his finest hour. With a potentially good line up of actors, the script is corny, the fight action overdone martial arts, the sets cheap, and the vampire-like combatants unconvincing. The "technology" is mix of WW2 guns and shiny rifles; they shout to one another (no radios in the 21st century?); and the "police" are inept.