Red Planet (2000)

Many times in Hollywood, two films come out at around the same time with a very similar theme. In 2000, that was the case with Red Planet and Mission to Mars. I know I had seen at least one of them in the theaters at the time, but even after watching this, I’m not sure if Red Planet was the one or not. In 2056, Earth is in crisis and scientists seeding Mars with algae in the hope of making it inhabitable. When the algae mysteriously begins producing less oxygen, a crew is sent to the planet to investigate. It has a pretty decent cast with Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Tom Sizemore, but other than being unmemorable, it also makes the egregious errors of relegating the one female crew member to stay ship-side and forcing her into an unnecessary romance. Apparently things haven’t improved much from 1959’s The Angry Red Planet .