Cinema: The Aliens Have Landed

Humans are the invaders in Mission to Mars

Four astronauts are out for a stroll on the surface of Mars when a giant nozzle of red sand rises, snakelike, and sucks the life out of three of them. So NASA sends a second crew (Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell). This solemn, often silly, sometimes beautiful space drama--surely the least facetious film of director Brian De Palma's career--echoes Richard C. Hoagland's 1987 book The Monuments of Mars. Hoagland postulates that the planet was once inhabited by superior beings who left their seed on Earth. The theory may not be hard science, but it can make for enthralling...

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