I really wanted to enjoy this. However, the stream of slaggings in the US press are pretty much deserved. This is pants. Expensive pants, but pants all the same. Funny how little attention the critics are paid - this film was still a top grosser at the US box office.

The plot is muddled, and the denouement undermind by a trailer that gives away too much - like images from the very last scenes (does anyone else feel they have been ripped off of by trailers that give too much away?). And don't even mention the bad science.

The film is a hotch potch of every other sci-fi you've seen. Visually, it looks good, although a strong sense of deja vue pervades - for example, visuals are borrowed shamelessly from Stanley Kubrick's 2001. Some of the special effects are impressive in themselves, but seem out of keeping with the mood of the rest of the film. Well, what mood there is to speak of. It never really gets going.

The problem is that Mission to Mars is neither a space-set human interest drama a la Apollo 13 or Lucas-style, special effects feast with all the gimmicks to boot.

De Palma plods through the motions of building up characters at a pre-Mars astronaut barbecue to begin with - talk of left behind families and so on (you know the score) - and then fails to follow up on this theme.

One redeeming aspect (I'm struggling here) is the relationship between the lead astronaut, the dudish Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) and his astronaut wife Terri (Connie Nielson). It helps create a short section of real tension where the crew are stranded in space. But it's all downhill from here.