Ghosts of Mars (2001)
Directed by John Carpenter
In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find the post deserted and something far more dangerous than any criminal — the original inhabitants of Mars, hellbent on getting their planet back.
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4 films that influenced Ghosts of Mars
What critics say influenced Ghosts of Mars
The new, two-disc set comes with a commentary track by critic Richard Schickel (who wrongly calls this Hawks' "last great" film) and filmmaker John Carpenter (who unofficially remade Rio Bravo twice, as Assault on Precinct 13 and Ghosts of Mars).
The plot borrows heavily from Carpenter's second film, the outstanding Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which itself was a remake of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo.
He still has his hardcore group of optimistic fans (as evidenced by his name preceding the title on the credits and poster), though even they will be hard pressed to find anything worthwhile in Ghosts of Mars, which is nothing short of ‘Assault on Precinct 13 In Space’ (with even Assault being originally based on cult western Rio Bravo).
After Hawks made Rio Bravo (1959), Carpenter's cinematic holy grail, he went on to direct films like Hatari! (1962), Red Line 7000 (1965), and El Dorado (1967), which as my French friends will surely attest, seemed to work as allegories, or movies obsessed with the passionate process of making movies.
After Hawks made Rio Bravo (1959), Carpenter's cinematic holy grail, he went on to direct films like Hatari! (1962), Red Line 7000 (1965), and El Dorado (1967), which as my French friends will surely attest, seemed to work as allegories, or movies obsessed with the passionate process of making movies.
An uneasy, hippified version of a cowboys and Indians shoot-'em-up, John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars is an exhausted shade of the once-hip director's oeuvre, baldly stealing from his Assault on Precinct 13 before partially resurrecting later works The Fog, Escape from N.Y./L.A., The Thing, and even They Live in the focus on an interracial pair hooking up to kick alien ass.
None of them will ever match Halloween, but one masterpiece is enough for anyone, and this one is better than The Fog, at least.
Ghosts of Mars, however, doesn't seem to have any rules to begin with--it's a chaotic mish-mash of ill-framed excuses for extended and dull fight scenes, most of them shot in extreme slow-motion and without any trace of the exuberance of, say, Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China and its alleyway deathmatch.
Some of his proceeding work could be characterized as simultaneously high and lowbrow, with the possible exception of 1986's self-reflexive Big Trouble in Little China, and the sellout Chevy Chase comedy Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992).
Not since Big Trouble in Little China (1986) has Carpenter given us a good movie, and he certainly hasn't given us a good horror movie since the early '80s.