Ghosts of Mars

 


Ghosts of Mars (2001)


The Plot: A Martian police detail sent to pick up and deliver a dangerous criminal find a hive of Martian zombies waiting for them.

It's the year 2176 and Mars is in the process of being terraformed. It is at a point though where humans can breath the air so they get going to what humans are really good at, strip mining the natural resources of the planet. What they didn't count on however, are Martian zombies! It seems that there was an ancient life form that was released by the mining crews where micro-organisms take over human bodies and turn them into Martian zombies. No assembly required! The science behind this isn't fully explained, but rest assured, the organisms can jump from body to body with ease. 

When on Mars, be sure to wear your safety goggles

Enter our heroes, the Mars Police force, led by Natasha Henstridge and Jason Statham. Certainly, we are safe if Jason Statham is around. They are supposed to bring dangerous murderer Ice Cube back to face trial. That is until the space zombies show up. This starts the fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. Gun fighting, hand to hand fighting, sword fighting. This movie has all of the fightings in it. It also includes more stunts where an explosion happens and the stunt men is launched off a trampoline 30 feet in the air. This happens time and time again. I am sure the only pre-requisite for hiring the stuntmen in this movie was "Can you jump off a trampoline?" The amount of flying stuntmen has to be a world record. 

BOING!!

This movie is also told via flashbacks at the resulting court martial hearing. Which is always jarring to go back to after a 10 minute space zombie battle. I mean it seems like the defense of "we had to blow @#!$ up because of the space zombies!" would be enough to avoid a court martial but I guess the Martian JAG office needs work to do too. 

We're here for the Mad Mex auditions

Ghosts of Mars is not a good movie. It looks like it was completely filmed on a sound stage which would be OK if this was on Earth, but it takes place on Mars. There isnt much of a plot besides fight the space zombies who look like they were the rejected extras from a Mad Max movie. The micro-organisms take over bodies it different ways, sometimes it takes you over right away, other times it kills you right away. I normally adore John Carpenter movies but this one really misses the mark. I give Ghost of Mars 4 space zombies. 


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