“The untamed beauty of Mars, it’s icy indifference, took our breath away.”

Justin’s rating: I would love to have spotted some convertible zooming by in the background of the “Mars” desert

Justin’s review: Around the turn of the millennium, there was an uptick of interest in Mars, especially in Hollywood. The studio system produced one of those “twin pairings” in Red Planet and Mission to Mars, both dull and not really worth revisiting. But there was a third movie along this vein that came out a year later that few know about, a movie that’s much more in line with 2015’s The Martian.

This would be Stranded, a Spanish-produced film about a group of astronauts who find themselves marooned on Mars after their lander crashes and they can’t return to the orbiter. With over a year to go before Earth can possibly send a rescue, the astronauts have to figure out how to survive on a planet that’s pretty inhospitable.

Naturally, everyone immediately falls to pieces as if this is MTV’s Real Mars and they’re a group of random strangers conscripted rather than professional astronauts and scientists. They do start working the problem, but they’re pretty pessimistic and snarky about it. You can imagine how they deal with the news that the rescue’s going to take longer than expected and there are only enough resources for two people to make it that long.

The concept here is pretty solid — again, see how well The Martian pulled it off — and all you need for “Mars” is a desert with a red tint filter. It’s actually perfect for a low-budget indie like this. Just do Robinson Crusoe on Mars and make us excited to see clever people using science to survive.

Concept is one thing, execution is always another. And it’s here that Stranded flounders. Yes, it’s got at least one solid actor in Joaquim de Almeida (Clear and Present Danger, Desperado), but everyone else here is struggling with basic English and believable emotions. It’s like all these characters woke up super grumpy even before they crash-landed, and they’re not going to rein it in for anything.

Seeing the astronauts flap around going, “Give me a break, OK? Give me a break!” is not the tone that this film needed, nor the naive voiceover narration we occasionally get from one of the women. I also couldn’t get over the odd choices for hairstyles, from the guy with the Hitler cut to the pink-haired punk girl to the guy with the frosted short hair that boy bands had circa 2000. Small things, but they add up while subtracting from believability, dividing the audience’s goodwill and multiplying the… crap, I’m out of analogy fuel for this sentence.

This is mostly a single-room movie akin to Lifepod and The Cold Equations, with glacial developments and an unfortunate focus on dialogue over action. It’s amateur hour (well, hour and 39 minutes), and I hit boredom threshold by a third of the way through it. And that’s unfortunate, because it’s in the final half-hour that this turns into some weird Stargate SG-1 episode with a glimmer of potential.

Intermission!

• That’s the most timid news anchor I’ve ever seen
• The lander is like a little fat space shuttle
• “It’s pretty crazy here” is not a report that I’d expect to hear from an astronaut upon landing
• Lowell (Johnny Ramone of the Ramones!) has a total Adolf Hitler haircut and don’t you tell me he doesn’t
• “I’m a geologist, that’s true. And that’s how I know to keep my feet on the ground.”
• They pronounce EVA as “eh-vah”
• “To hell with bacteria!”
• The astronauts wearing earrings was REALLY distracting to me.
• Did he find a perfect cube of ice outside?
• “Why don’t we build a windmill?”
• If you’re walking outside to kill yourself, why take EXTRA oxygen tanks? Or any tanks? Or even spacesuits?
• I don’t think it’s in good taste to tell people walking to their deaths to “take care”