Ghosts of Mars

A Cursed Film

Quite in a rhythm after its release, the 'master of horror' John Carpenter met a barrage of bad reviews insulting every aspect of his new film GHOSTS OF MARS. It was such a bad reception, that Carpenter was sent into a ten year hiatus, reportedly losing his "love of the cinema". The movie, in a fashion like that of ALIEN mixed with the classic western, told in flashbacks of a team of super police on Mars in the future. In this future, Mars is on its way to becoming a quasi-Earth (livable, but obnoxiously red). The super police, led by Natasha Henstridge's Melanie and Pam Grier's Helena, are off to pick up a criminal from a small mining outpost in the middle of nowhere. The team embarks on their journey with a few other men, including Jason Statham as Jericho. However, upon reaching the outpost, the team finds a deserted town, but the criminal they're supposed to pick up sitting confused in his jail cell. His name is Desolation Williams, and he's played smartly by Ice Cube. Melanie and Desolation get into it quite a bit upon Desolation's addition to their crew, and a portion here feels like the shoddy start-ups to westerns. The crew soon discovers why the town is deserted, learning that a buried ghostly lifeforce was awoken by the miners, and possessed their human bodies. Melanie and her crew briskly come up with shoddy plans to kill the zombie-esque miners, but most of the rest of the film past the discovery consists of stylish shoot-em-ups. Now in contrast to the outrage of Carpenter-devotees who hated GHOSTS OF MARS, I found it refreshingly blunt about what it was and what it set out to do. This is an action film and it delivers on that action. It is not confusing or complex, but very entertaining. If any of the characters in the film feel one-dimensional, its because they're meant to be (as it is in Carpenter's THE WARD). And it's also obvious that he's capable of character development if one considers Ice Cube's Desolation Williams character. Mostly, GHOSTS OF MARS is a clever take on the western within an odd setting. This serves to accentuate the idea of storytelling or theme in a universal way.

Ghosts of Mars: ★★★1/2