Mars Needs Mums

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

So this was released in Australia today without much fanfare. Thanks to Thor (which I'll see tonight) and Rio and Justin Bieber and lack of 3D cinemas it's only showing once a day in 3D, which is a great shame. The only reason I'd see something like Hop in cinemas is for the 3D (well that and James Marsden) but alas, they just don't have the screens yet. Being school holidays I thought I'd be in for a tough time with lots of screaming kids. They were all there in the foyer but amazingly, and sadly for the film, I was the only person in the cinema for this film. My own private screening.

So A big 3d motion capture film from Image Movers, hardly any advertising about it's release, only one screening a day on release and no-one shows up to see it. It must be pretty shit right?

That's probably the most agonising part, it's not the best kids film I've seen but it's pretty darn great and definitely deserves to be seen on the big screen in 3D. There is some great old school kid movie sci-fi adventure in this. The kind where not everything is light and fluffy, the kind were they KILL a main characters mother right in front of him, scarring him for life, the kind where the then get him and line him up in front of a firing squad, the kind where even if you escape the martian complex, if you trip up in the low mars gravity and crack your helmet you'll suffocate (which also happens..) Seriously, there are some real tense moments, I don't know why I got so involved in this one but the whole end sequence had me SO on edge I never would have believed it. That was incredible. A real tangible sense of danger, a time limit, and multiple plans going wrong one after the other against impossible odds. Great stuff!!!

The only reason any of that works is because of the grounding they give it in real emotion. Its slight but it's there. Particularly when Dan Fogler, who is usually the most annoying person in every film he's in, reveals how he became trapped on Mars and what happened to his mother. It's pretty heavy stuff but it sets the stakes and he pulls it off well. That and nobody wants to see Joan Cusack get hurt because she's awesome.

But you look at the trailer and yeah, there's a lot of comedy stuff that falls dead. There's a lot of very 80's sayings that are amusing in context, the guy on Mars arrived then and has been unaffected by the last 2 decades of pop culture, so he's still trapped in the 80's. The outcast Martians are worse though, they are trapped in the influence of hippies from the 70's. There's a big flower power thing going there that they don't understand but have adopted to their resistance against the evil supervisor.

That's another thing that doesn't quite work, the evil martians motivation for stealing earth mums and separating Martian society into males and females, it's briefly explained but doesn't really make much sense if you think about it for more than 5 seconds.

Technically the thing looks great. Great designs and sets and I love love love the lighting. Unfortunately they have some of that uncanny valley dead eyes thing going on. The last shot of the kid smiling is particularly horrifying. But all the motion capture stuff works great. Seth Green plays the kid. In that trailer you can hear his voice, albeit digitally modified. But in the film they ended up dubbing him over with a slightly more natural sounding kids voice, which probably works a little better. It still keeps his rhythms and sarcasm.

I quite enjoyed this one. It's no where near the awesomeness of Monster House, the characters aren't as strong, but the 80's kids only adventure feel is intact. and the 3D is great. It's a shame no-one will see all this hard work.