De Palma’s `Mission to Mars’ goes nowhere

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In Theaters: “Mission to Mars”

Just imagine the bickering that could have been heard around the world had audiences been allowed to sit in the back seat of Brian De Palma’s ill-fated “Mission to Mars”:

“Look out for that cliche!”

“There’s no intelligent life out here!”

“Blast you, De Palma! You’ll never have the right stuff!”

“Hey — isn’t that Stanley Kubrick?”

And so on and so on. The execution of this film is about as embarrassing as it gets, but what made De Palma think he could put a man on Mars?

He does, but he shouldn’t have. No, really, he shouldn’t have. His film is so wretchedly sentimentalized, so false and cloying on so many false and cloying levels, audiences at my screening were emptying their bags of popcorn for something a bit more vile than popcorn.

Earth to De Palma — your mission stinks.

Right away his film shoots into a black hole of stupidity with a neighborhood block party for the swaggering bunch of meatheads NASA is rocketing to Mars. God help us all if these fools are the pick of NASA’s litter.

It’s the year 2020 and the bad news here is that man still hasn’t evolved out of gross fits of sentimentality. To wit: Before these men leave for their visit with the little green men, they have a bonding moment under the stars in which they embrace each other fiercely and slap each other’s rear ends while puffing away on long, thick cigars. (Armchair psychologists can make of this what they wish.)

De Palma has a good cast in Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise, Connie Nielson, Don Cheadle and Jerry O’Connell, but it’s a crime what he does to them. Namely, he asks them to speak. “The universe is not chaos,” one character says with heartfelt conviction. “It’s connection! Life reaches out to life!” How about reaching out and slapping your agent?

Once on Mars, the special effects do get nifty, but who cares about nifty special effects when you can’t connect with the characters? Nobody here is real — the characters are dishrags moving about on the screen. Worse, De Palma has ripped off so many films — especially “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Contact,” “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” — that his own film takes no shape. It’s true. “Mission to Mars” is as gaseous as a forming star, but it’s never once as spectacular.

Grade: D-

On Video: “Drive Me Crazy”

Any film that features a hit single by Britney Spears promises to strike a few false notes, so it’s no surprise that John Schultz’s “Drive Me Crazy” warbles into video stores with a premise that’s full of them.

The film, which should have been titled “Deja Vu Crazy,” offers nothing new to its core audience of high school teens; they’ve seen all of this before in other films, most recently in “She’s All That” and far better in 1995’s “Clueless.”

The story follows two teens — polar opposites Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart of television’s “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”) and Chase (Adrian Grenier) — who have one thing in common: Each has recently been dumped by a mate.

In an effort to drive their former boyfriend and girlfriend crazy with jealousy, Nicole and Chase decide to date each other, a resounding act of maturity that concludes just exactly as audiences expect — he’ll get a makeover, she’ll question her high ideals, lots of booze will be swilled by lots of minors, and, well, if you don’t feel like renting this one, you could always rent “She’s All That” or “Clueless” to see how “Crazy” turns out.

Grade: C+

“Outside Providence”

If it weren’t for its cute, one-legged dog and the names of its characters (Dildo, Jizz, Drugs, Mousy and Thunderturd), Michael Corrente’s “Outside Providence” would be difficult to peg as a Peter Farrelly movie. Farrelly, who along with his brother Bobby brought audiences “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb & Dumber,” is actually the focus of this film, a coming-of-age story based on his 1988 semiautobiographical novel set in 1974.

The film, which was touted as “an outrageous comedy,” does have its outlandish moments, but it’s equally a drama; it feels like “Rushmore” crossed with “Dead Poets Society” and “A Separate Peace.” It follows Tim Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy), a blue-collar pothead kid with a bigot for a father (Alec Baldwin), who sends him to a Connecticut prep school after he crashes into a police car.

There’s very little new here, but the film is nevertheless a likable mix saved by its performances. The scenes between Hatosy and Baldwin may not be as affecting as those shared between Nick Nolte and James Coburn in “Affliction,” but they’re enough to make you wish Baldwin was making more movies.

Grade: C+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Crazy in Alabama C Drive me Crazy C+ Guinevere A- The Limey A Outside Providence C+ Eyes Wide Shut B+ Buena Vista Social Club B+ The Bone Collector C+ Twin Falls Idaho A The Best Man B Random Hearts C- Stigmata C- Bats C Brokedown Palace C+ Double Jeopardy B- An Ideal Husband A- The Story of Us D The Astronaut’s Wife D- The Winslow Boy A- Runaway Bride C- Stir of Echoes A- Tarzan B+