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Reviews
Escape from Mars (1999)
Scientific story sound, personal stories incomplete
The first manned mission to Mars is launched in 2015 (on my birthday, of all days!) and troublesome issues, both technical and personal, plague the crew.
While the scientific/technical problems reach their conclusions, you never really get the feeling the personal issues are there or sufficiently dealt with. "Escape from Mars" kept reminding me of the book "Mars Underground" by William K. Hartmann - scientifically strong, but lacking in good character development.
Don't expect to deeply care for the characters no matter how tender-hearted you are; you're just not given anything substantial (though the movie tries) to get emotional over.
It seems that there simply was too much too tell and too little movie to tell it all completely. Perhaps another hour would have permitted an adequate exploration of the inner-conflicts of each crew member. For those who mainly like sci-fi stories "Escape from Mars" rates well. At least, worth viewing once.