The Last Days on Mars | Review

Mars Attacks: Robinson’s Promising Debut an Arid Mirage

Early on in Ruairi Robinson’s directorial debut, The Last Days on Mars, a generic yet eerily promising set-up will doubtlessly remind audiences of a slew of similar space gone wrong sci-fi entries, both classic and not. An unmistakable derivative of Alien, right down to finicky crew dynamics, Robinson’s rather promising presentation fails to maximize the momentum as the film dwindles into its third act inevitabilities, left wide open for the possibility of more to come.

Only nineteen hours left of a six month research mission on Mars has an eight person crew going a little stir crazy. Science Officer Kim Aldrich (Olivia Williams) is upset that the team has found nothing substantial and it seems her hopes had been set on finding evidence of indigenous life. It seems she’s been taking out her disappointment on the other crew members and several of them are happy to go home just to be away from her, including Campbell (Liev Schreiber) and Lane (Romola Garai), the crew’s medic. Just as the crew is about to wrap up for a final briefing, Russian officer Petrovic (Goran Kostic) discovers evidence of a living organism in his lab work and is granted permission by Captain Charles Brunel (Elias Koteas) to secretly go check out his discovery outside, taking crewmate Harrington (Tom Cullen) along for the ride. Enraging the discovery hungry Aldrich, their idyll is cut short when Petrovic is swallowed in the sand, and they soon discover that the living organism they’ve stumbled upon should have been left alone.

How ironic that Robinson’s crew is stationed at Tantalus Base, invoking the mythological figure cast into a circle of Hades and placed beneath a tree whose low hanging fruit will forever elude him. It’s where the word ‘tantalize’ is derived, which is exactly something that The Last Days on Mars does not do. Robinson’s surprisingly amassed cast, along with Robbie Ryan’s striking cinematography (the regular DP for Andrea Arnold, he seems best paired with younger directors, his flair muted in his work on several auteur driven films, like Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share and this year’s Philomena from Stephen Frears), prove to be more than enough reason to see and appreciate The Last Days on Mars.

Mars is a dusty, red, desolate desert of endless dunes. Liev Schreiber, Romola Garai, Elias Koteas, and Weekend’s Tom Cullen are all certainly likeable in their respective plights and differentiating tics, but none can outshine the fury of Olivia Williams’ Kim, an aggressive and sometimes verbally abusive Science Officer who will draw comparisons to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in her strict adherence to the rules. While more callous and cold hearted than Ellen Ripley, it’s interesting to further compare how Clive Dawson’s script treats its strongest female figure. As we realize what’s really going on here, i.e. an alien life force changes humans into zombies, Mars suddenly hits cruise control and coasts on a series of predictable moments before chugging to a finale that is anything but inspired. What’s more interesting are the multiple characters with last names similar to famous film directors (Aldrich, Harrington, Petrovic, and Brunel is awfully similar to Bunuel).

Certainly, the quality of The Last Days on Mars makes it more interesting to watch than something like Apollo 18 (2011), and it may even please many genre hounds irritated by the sillier and convoluted elements of something like last year’s Prometheus (and at least the characters here aren’t uttering such nonsensical drivel). But Robinson has crafted a film that is too simple and too similar to other titles, an unconvincing rendering that fails to engage.

2/5 Stars