Mars zombies. Right. Pretty good special effects, though. Also credible Mars rovers and other space hardware. But the premise of a Mars pathogen that turns the Mars ground crew into un-killable zombies that can still operate sophisticated hardware is so bad that it became interesting to see if I could complete my zombie movies Bingo card.

Many of this movie's negative reviews on Amazon. com are trite, superficial and shortsighted. After several viewings, I've come to the conclusion that this is in fact an excellent film. This is a visually stunning movie with amazing attention to detail in the spacecraft sets and equipment, astronaut attire, and the vistas of the Martian terrain. The views of Mars in "The Last Days on Mars" are just as spectacular and awesome as those in "the Martian," a movie with a much higher budget. The outer space scenes are equally impressive and drop-dead gorgeous.

It should be mentioned that Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ruairi Robionson and a special effects team headed by the people responsible for "District 9," "X-Men: First Class," and "Avatar" were involved in making "The Last Days on Mars" such a visually exciting (and yes ... terrifying) movie.

As for the cast, Liev Schreiber as Chief Systems Engineer Vincent Campbell and Elias Koteas as Captain Charles Brunel were the stand-outs as they used rational thinking and good judgment in a horrific situation. In short, if you're a science fiction buff, "The Last Days on Mars" is essential viewing. Don't let the negative reviews dissuade you from viewing this enjoyable and intriguing movie.

Hint: when you see the words "Prescience Films" rolling in the opening credits then not too many minutes later the Liev Schreiber character makes a comment about the space ship that's their ride home being a "coffin" then connect those dots to his "prescient" flashes - not hallucinations or flashbacks - you'll know what happens in the rest of the film. I really wanted this to be a genuine character driven film and it does seem to start out that way then bam! because the writers couldn't create an interesting scientific plot they dream up an itty bitty virus that turns people into monsters. And of course, everybody dies. Yep, everybody.

For me, some of the character problems: the unlikely petulant attitude of one of the female crew, a captain who goes against his better judgement and grant's a request for a spur of the moment excursion by a crew member who isn't transparent about his motives and which gets everyone killed (but hey if this is a horror film instead of a legit sci-film then I reckon that's an acceptable plot device). And the psych doc crew member? I mean really? They'd send up a big ol' fraidy cat? The point is, these are some of the least likely humans NASA or whatever agency, would send on a very long mission to Mars. But, that's another plot point that tells you early on that this isn't going to be a juicy sciencey film (it's juicy all right just doesn't have the stuff to get my brain juices flowing...)

It's like writers draw a circle and write the world ALIEN in it then start brainstorming how they can create (ripoff) something ahem, fresh... from that film. Same but different. If you like horror monster movies that go nowhere you'll like this one. If you want a story where characters don't just react to a mashup of exaggerated disasters, characters who we can relate to through their internal conflicts that they grow through and discover resolution and direction--you don't want to watch this movie. If you want human infected with Mars virus and turns into a monster who kills everyone (self included), blood, gaping slashes, gore... grab your bucket of popcorn and park yourself on the couch and enjoy.

So what did I like about the film? Richter's music score, great as always. I'll buy that. Skip the film.
Since I skipped most of the last half of this film I have time to crank up Interstellar and watch for the 25th or so time.

Sci-Fi horror is a cool genre. I was looking to watch more of it after getting into the movies Apollo 18 and Event Horizon, and thought this would be another good one. What hurt the movie was lack of explanation in some parts. How exactly did Marko get infected? How exactly does that infection spread? (These are kind of important when zombies/zombie-like monsters are involved.) What do the samples brought into the base, and the mold growths in the hole, have to do with what's going on? And what was so significant about what happened to the main guy on the Aurora? I feel like whatever happened should have been scrapped if it was never explained, but at the same time it seemed to figure into the movie enough when that same guy was going into the vents.

Again, it wasn't bad, and I do think it's worth watching. The zombies look really cool (I love that shot of the zombie bathed in that red light looking out the window) and that this happens in space with so few places to escape to and limited oxygen adds tension to the situation. But it would have been a lot better if they explained the points I listed above.

Too many obvious mistakes and logical fallacies, and you never really start to like the characters because they are in no way likeable.

Leaving an un-dead space zombie lying on the floor of an airlock with a pair of sharp scissors that are infected with the zombie virus in his hand while you are trying to put on your space suit and evacuate the base station? Probably not a great idea.

The strong woman character trying to tie down the dead zombie-virus-infected captain so he can't come back to life and start killing everyone? Nope, can't do that because its disrespectful.

Rather than keep calm to work out an extremely simple plan to kill two zombies before they wreck everything and destroy the habitat, everyone goes into full panic mode and completely disposes of common sense, thus giving the zombies all the opportunity they need to destroy the habitat and infect everyone.

Hated this movie. Everyone dies and helps clean up the human gene pool. Zero stars.

They had all the elements needed to make a good movie and blew it with bad characters, sophomoric writing and typical infected zombie storyline elements. It is pretty obvious that they did not have a good team of technical experts to help the writing team. I always hate it when they depict scientific team member as idiots that have zero qualifications and deep character flaws. In real life, astronauts are all highly trained and qualified in multiple fields; and are screened to ensure that they can get along and are not going to fly-off the handle in a crisis. This movie could have gone the more realistic science path, like "The Martian," where a team encounters an infectious agent on Mars and uses their limited tools to try and find a solution. Instead, it relies on typical horror action vehicles to drive the movie forward--nonsensical running from and wrestling with zombies. Too bad. Overall, the movie was somewhat entertaining, but will make most people dissatisfied.

Like many films on the border between "A" and "B", this one seems to confuse people. Maybe it's the mix of sci-fi and horror, with the sci-fi purists not getting down with the horror, and vice versa. More likely, it's the inexcusable scientific errors--such as every injection being administered straight into the neck (neither intravenous nor intramuscular--more like intra-tracheal), and the line, "it's a virulent bacteria!"

But consider some of the more highly rated sci-fi pics, like, oh maybe "Gravity". There's no disputing the fact that Gravity is no better than The Last Day on Mars, and I think the latter is much better--the suspense and dramatic tension are more complex (in a good way) than anything in recently released main-stream sci-fi films.

I would like to write more, backing up my generalizations with specific examples from "Mars", but there's only so much time I can devote to these things. I'll follow up later, if I can.

If you’ve ever wondered why in the blue-eyed world NASA would send Steve Buscemi and a machine gun into outer space, well now you know! If these brave astronauts had just had a machine gun. Or even a pistol. Crossbow. Pointed stick.

What we’ve got here is a simple outbreak of Space Zombies! Just like the 28 Days version, these zombies are fast, super-strong, virtually un-killable, and with an appetite for human flesh! Created by Hubris Guy falling into a crater full of Martian Zombie Creating Bacteria, one by one the assorted crew of astronauts fall victim to zombification, growing cold, unstoppable and really unattractive. Silly? Certainly. Well done? Mmmm….

The Mars rovers are actually quite nice. The spacesuits are, too. And unlike so many space movies, the space helmets don’t have the internal lights around the face that make it clear that it’s Sandra Bullock or George Clooney in there. Ask anybody who’s ever driven at night, the last thing you want is a lot of bright lights in your windshield. So that’s nice. The spacecraft interiors aren’t half bad, either. Not going for the “Alien” space grunge look, things look clean enough for NASA.

No effort is made to simulate the .3 G Martian gravitation. The movie does, however, not fall into the Deadly Martian Dust Storm that destroys everything. Looking at you, “The Martian”! Yes, Mars has dust storms. No, Mars does not have enough atmosphere to do any damage. The stiffest possible Martian gale wouldn’t register as more than a faint breeze on Earth. Not much air. But plenty of fine dust and low gravity allow for poor visibility. So, congrats on the dust storm score.

The desert landscape is as convincingly Martian as could be done without going full green screen CGI simulated background. It’s OK. At least, no sagebrush or cactus.

We do get a few minutes of adequate microgravity floating blood drop effects once we leave the planet. Not terrible. Aside from the zombies, in fact, most of the effects are fine, given the budget. It’s just that the premise is so ludicrous. Martian microbes have waited for millions, billions of years for a suitable host to come along, just so they can launch an all-out attack on beings they’ve never encountered before. Biologically compatible, right down to needing to eat brains! First contact, bad impression, all I’m saying.

Did you hear about the dyslexic zombie? Who kept shuffling around chanting, “Brian….Brian…Brian….”?

Let’s see. Liev Schreiber, who I thought was a big enough actor not to have to slum like this, but a paycheck is a paycheck, I guess. Whenever you see him, don’t you look around for Wolverine? I know I do. He’s a fine actor with impressive credentials, but he’ll always be fighting Hugh Jackman in my mind.

Hey, it’s that guy from Law and Order SUV! And a token black woman who’s one of the first to cross the human/zombie line. A humane decent philosopher who ends up a coward and a zombie. Some other people. A multinational crew! Liev’s Canadian! Another guy is Serbian, as we’re told at least twice. Doesn’t matter, since he loses the mitteleuropa accent as soon as he gets undead. As do everybody else, one-by-one, haunted house style. Liev alone is left to tell the tale. Call him Ishmael. Unless he’s infected, that is.

Pluses? Nice production design. Decent spacecraft. It’s blessedly short, 90 minutes or so. Not dragged out Nolan style to 3 hours. Only one medium-tedium subplot (Liev does a lot of flashbacking to some dark secret that happened on the trip out from Earth). Reasonable accommodation to “science” if you overlook the whole “Mars bacteria can infect, take over, and enhance a species they’ve never met before thing.”

Minuses? A lot of fighting and wrestling and skulking in the dark. Cutting to black. Confused editing leaves no idea who’s fighting who. Blackness is used to cover up lack of sets. And the fate of the world comes down, as it always must, to a fist fight in outer space. The medical science employed is, to be charitable, questionable. The acting is, uh, workmanlike. But still, it’s short and diverting enough for an Airdyne session. Don’t regret having seen it. Won’t watch it again.

Jake Gyllenhaal had a better time wrasslin’ his extraterrestrial menace in “Life”. Sigourney and crew did a better job of the “who’s next to die” in the good “Alien” movies. The good being 1 and 2 and about a third of 3 and the rest are terrible. There’s maybe too much “28 Days” going on here, but it’s on Mars! Mars zombies!

And Steve Buscemi, they could’ve used you and your Space Madness and that machine gun. Always, always, if you're going to another planet or asteroid or comet, take a machine gun.