Editing Mission to Mars (section)

===Critical response===
Among mainstream critics in the United States, the film received mainly negative reviews.<ref name="meta">[https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mission-to-mars Mission to Mars]. [[Metacritic]]. CNET Networks. Retrieved 2011-10-22.</ref> [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reported that 24% of 115 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 4.1/10 and the consensus, "Beauty only goes skin deep in this shallow but visually stunning film."<ref name="rt">[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mission_to_mars/ Mission to Mars (2000)]. [[Rotten Tomatoes]]. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 2025-02-27.</ref> At [[Metacritic]], which assigns a [[weighted mean|weighted average]] out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 34 based on 36 reviews.<ref name="meta" /> Furthermore, the film was nominated for a [[Golden Raspberry Award]] for Brian De Palma in the category of 'Worst Director', where he lost to [[Roger Christian (filmmaker)|Roger Christian]] for ''[[Battlefield Earth (film)|Battlefield Earth]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.razzies.com/forum/2000-razzie-nominees-winners_topic350.html |title=2000 RAZZIE® Nominees & "Winners" |publisher=[[Golden Raspberry Award Foundation|Golden Raspberry Award]] |access-date=2011-10-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513120507/http://www.razzies.com/forum/2000-razzie-nominees-winners_topic350.html |archive-date=2013-05-13 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Audiences surveyed by [[CinemaScore]] gave the film a grade "C−" on scale of A to F.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.cinemascore.com/publicsearch/index/title/ |title= Cinemascore |url-status= live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181220122629/https://www.cinemascore.com/publicsearch/index/title/ |archive-date= 2018-12-20 }}</ref>

The film's reception among French-language critics was markedly different in positive fashion.<ref>{{cite book | author = [[Steven Dillon (writer and professor)|Steven Dillon]] | title=The Solaris Effect: Art and Artifice in Contemporary American Film | date=November 2006 | publisher= University of Texas Press | page=80 |isbn=978-0-292-71345-1 }}</ref> Film journal ''[[Cahiers du cinéma]]'' devoted several articles to De Palma and ''Mission to Mars'' at the time of its release, and placed it as ''#4'' in their list of the ''10 best films of 2000''.<ref>[http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/cahiers.html Top Ten Lists: 1951-2009] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120327102838/http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/cahiers.html |date=2012-03-27 }}. Cahiers du Cinéma. Retrieved 2011-10-22.</ref> The film was screened out of competition at the [[2000 Cannes Film Festival]].<ref name="festival-cannes.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/5176/year/2000.html |title=Festival de Cannes: Mission to Mars |access-date=2009-10-17|work=festival-cannes.com}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Sinise and Robbins, a couple of awfully good actors, are asked to speak some awfully clunky lines. When Robbins says, "OK, we're ready to light this candle" before ignition, it sounds like a parody of astronaut lingo.}}

—Bob Graham, writing in the ''San Francisco Chronicle''<ref name="Graham"/>

Mark Halverson, writing in ''[[Sacramento News & Review]]'', said "My inner child felt cheated that the film leapt from an astronaut barbecue to Mars without so much as a rocket launch and that the best special effect (a sandstorm nod to ''[[The Mummy (1999 film)|The Mummy]]'') was unveiled in the first 20 minutes." He added, "This visually alluring mess also includes gobs of cheesy dialogue and a hokey-looking alien."<ref name="halverson">Halverson, Mark (24 May 2001). [http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/mission-to-mars/content?oid=6528 ''Mission to Mars'']. ''[[Sacramento News & Review]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> Left unimpressed, Bob Graham in the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', wrote that the film "meanders into space-mystico mumbo jumbo. We're supposed to share the characters' awe at the wonder of the universe, but more likely the audience will wonder whatever were the filmmakers thinking." Graham characterized ''Mission to Mars'' as "a very mixed bag: rhapsodic cinematography, several genuine shocks amid a suffocating air of gooeyness, impressive visual effects – even if some seem to exist in a vacuum – and an absolutely loony conclusion."<ref name="Graham">Graham, Bob (10 March 2000). [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/03/10/DD7394.DTL Spaced Out `Mission to Mars' gets lost in mystical mumbo jumbo]. ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> [[Roger Ebert]] of the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'', said the film "contains conversations that drag on beyond all reason. It is quiet when quiet is not called for. It contains actions that deny common sense. And for long stretches the characters speak nothing but boilerplate". He believed that "It misses too many of its marks. But it has extraordinary things in it. It's as if the director, the gifted Brian De Palma, rises to the occasions but the screenplay gives him nothing much to do in between them."<ref>Ebert, Roger (10 March 2000). [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000310/REVIEWS/3100301 Mission to Mars]. ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> The film however, was not without its supporters. Michael Wilmington of the ''[[Daily News (New York)|NY Daily News]]'', exclaimed the film was "One of the most gorgeous science-fiction movies ever - and probably also one of the most realistic in detail and scientific extrapolation".<ref>Wilmington, Michael (10 March 2000). Mission to Mars. ''[[Daily News (New York)|NY Daily News]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> [[Richard Corliss]] of ''[[Time (magazine)|TIME]]'' commented that "This isn't ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001]]'', by a long shot, but for 2000, it'll do nicely".<ref>Corliss, Richard (10 March 2000). ''Mission to Mars''. ''[[Time (magazine)|TIME]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> William Arnold of the ''[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]]'', added to the positive sentiment by saying "Here and there an inspired shot makes the film come alive, and at least three of its sequences had me positioned well on the edge of my seat."<ref>Arnold, William (10 March 2000). Mission to Mars. ''[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>

Writing for ''[[The Austin Chronicle]]'', Marc Savlov noted that the "''Mission to Mars'' falls prey to an overwhelming sense of a man trying to please everyone all the time." He went further, that "De Palma has reached out to embrace a larger audience and seemingly sacrificed those traits that drew us to him in the first place: his singular vision, his clinical stylistics, and the palpable sense of dread that his best films engender."<ref>Savlov, Marc (10 March 2000). [http://www.austinchronicle.com/calendar/film/2000-03-10/140147/ Mission to Mars]. ''[[The Austin Chronicle]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> In a mixed review, [[James Berardinelli]] writing for ''[[ReelViews]]'', called the film "Ineptly directed, badly acted, and scripted with an eye towards stupidity and incoherence, the film is worthwhile only to those who are in desperate need of a nap. And, as is often the case when a big budget, high profile motion picture self-destructs, this one does so in spectacular fashion."<ref>Berardinelli, James (March 2000). [http://preview.reelviews.net/movies/m/mission_mars.html Mission to Mars]. ''[[ReelViews]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> Describing a mixed opinion, [[J. Hoberman]] of ''[[The Village Voice]]'' said the film encompassed "a touchy-feely esprit that's predicated on equal parts [[Buck Rogers]] bravado and backyard barbecue, the whole burnt burger drenched in Ennio Morricone's elegiac western-style score".<ref>Hoberman, J. (14 March 2000). [http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-03-14/film/missions-impossible/1/ Missions Impossible]. ''[[The Village Voice]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>

{{blockquote|Unfortunately, the filmmakers' imagination flags in the closing sequences; the movie's final reel looks like a high-tech museum exhibit entitled '"2001: A Space Odyssey" for Dummies'.}}

—Margaret A. McGurk, writing for ''[[The Cincinnati Enquirer]]''<ref>McGurk, Margaret (14 March 2000). [http://cincinnati.com/freetime/movies/mcgurk/031000_mars.html Mars looks familiar next to nothing] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121007032458/http://cincinnati.com/freetime/movies/mcgurk/031000_mars.html |date=2012-10-07 }}. ''[[The Cincinnati Enquirer]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>

[[Elvis Mitchell]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'', stated that the "visual design is spectacular, and the scenes on the Martian surface look so real that the picture could have been made on location. A [[holograph]]ic sequence detailing the evolutionary link between Earth and Mars is staggeringly well staged."<ref name="Mitchell" /> However, he ultimately came to the conclusion that there wasn't "an original moment in the entire movie, and the score is so repetitive that it could have been downloaded directly from ''EnnioMorricone.com''."<ref name="Mitchell">Mitchell, Elvis, (10 March 2000). [https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9804E6D81F38F933A25750C0A9669C8B63 Small Step for Man, but a Big Whoop for Martians]. ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> Similarly, [[Todd McCarthy]] wrote in ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' that the film's "dramatic package that it arrives in is so flimsy, unconvincing and poorly wrought that it's impossible to be swept away by the illustrated version of [[creationism]] on offer." He did note "Pictorially, the film is smooth and pristine looking. De Palma and his frequent cinematographer Stephen H. Burum go for their patented swooping and twisting camera moves whenever possible, and there are some very nice ones onboard the recovery ship."<ref>McCarthy, Todd (9 March 2000). [https://www.variety.com/review/VE1117778778?refcatid=31 ''Mission to Mars'']. ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref> [[Lisa Schwarzbaum]] writing for ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' deduced that "''Mission to Mars'' wants us to think about lofty things: the bravery of explorers, the ingenuity of our nation's space program, the humility required to comprehend the possibility that we earthlings are not the be-all and end-all of creation. But De Palma's film is too embarrassed, too jittery and self-conscious to hush up and pay attention."<ref>Schwarzbaum, Lisa (17 March 2000). [https://web.archive.org/web/20081122143526/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,275701,00.html ''Mission to Mars'']. ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]''. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>