John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001)
Last Watch Date - August 16, 2026
Total Times Watched - Twice
Comments
The last time I saw this movie was decades ago. I wasn't sure if I had seen it or not because it's been so long, but then the scenes started popping up and I started to remember things. The only reason I watched this today was because I listened to How Did This Get Made? about it on my drive home from a wedding a couple states away. They did NOT like this movie. June said watching it was "suffering." Jason didn't find anything redeemable. Paul didn't like it either. They said there was nothing to get from it. ARE THEY RIGHT?
First things first, this movie is stupid. The premise of it isn't really that different from some other types of movies where the cops and criminals group up to fight some common foe. In this case, they're technically the invaders but they're also being invaded. It's like if Roanoke were a penal colony and then when the English came back to check on it, they joined forces to defend against a native raiding party. They're colonizers. Are we supposed to root for them? I'm not even sure. None of these characters are very likable. That leads to some casting issues...
Natasha Henstridge is best known for Species and the reason people know her for that is ... not because of her acting. She's not good in this movie. Wooden would be generous. Her character is incredibly paper-thin though, so I'm not sure you can fault her. Ice Cube's character also makes no sense. He's supposed to be this badass murderer but he comes off as a sort of mopey guy who has been screwed over. But when he tries to be "tough", it doesn't really work. Jason Statham plays a creepy dude who is a common military trope. Clea Duvall is technically in this movie. Her head gets cut off. I guess that's the extent of her character. You also have Rose from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. I'm right on top of that, Rose! She's not good in this but she has that funny older woman short/spiked hair look from the late 90s/early 00s that screamed mid-life crisis or bitchy dance mom.
I don't usually spoil things but there's not much to spoil here. The premise is that "ghosts" have possessed miners and made them go nuts. Jason makes fun of their "language" in the podcast and rightly so. It's absolutely abysmal when you compare it to things like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones where there was great pain to make realistic-seeming languages (or even full conlangs). This..? It literally is guys screaming gibberish. There are no recognizable speech patterns or sounds. It's all just guttural silliness. Those ghost-miners are kind of like the 28 Days Later rage-infected folks. They act very similarly. Natasha Henstridge and her cop buddies have to try to get out.. OR ENTIRELY STOP THEM!
Apparently John Carpenter has said this was meant to be a comedy and people didn't "get it." There are cheesy things that are funny in this, but nothing seems purposefully funny. It seems like he probably really tried to make something cool and it didn't work, so he had to cover for that. Kind of like a middle schooler at a school dance pretending those weren't his dance moves, he's just joking!
Something I don't remember them mentioning but I found egregious was how BAD the fight sequences were. This was a small cast in a small area, there's really no excuse for how bad the fights were. If you looked in the background at any given time, it was the saddest "ok now you come at me slowly" type of fighting you could ever see. They had to do a bunch of slow motion for Natasha fighting because I don't think she had any training for this. Think about when this came out, too. 2001 was shortly after The Matrix and Fight Club, which both had quite good fight choreography.
And yet, I did find this movie entertaining in parts. It's so over the top stupid that it's impossible to take seriously in any way, but it has little bits that are fun or interesting. You might even say this movie should've come out 10 years earlier and it would've been better. It does NOT stand up against similar movies of that time, but if you look at it in a late 80s, early 90s sort of way, it's more fun.
Oh and the soundtrack is pretty cool if you like metal.
I think it was Jason who said that what they have at the end of this movie is the movie he wants to see. It sort of ends on a cliffhanger but it would be more of an action movie than this semi-action, semi-investigative, semi-survival movie that it is.
Recommended?
No. It's not GOOD by any stretch but it's not bad enough that you need to see it either. It's forgettable at best, stupid at worst.