The Last Days on Mars

First Hit: This was a painfully poor film in all ways.

The film begins with people outside on a landscape that is supposed to be Mars but it could have been California, Utah, and Arizona or somewhere in the Middle East where the landscape is void of vegetation and it is both rocky and sandy.

The set up was extremely poor and when they finally tried to frame the story with shots from above the surface of the planet, it was too late. The premise that this group was on Mars was null and void from the very beginning. Briefly the rest of the story is that the group on the planet is just about ready to leave the surface and head back to earth, when at the last minute, they think they find some sort of life. In a snap decision two of the crew goes out and get sucked up by the organisms which make them zombies. They come for the rest of the crew.

Liev Schreiber as Vincent tried to make his character thoughtful and intense but it didn’t work. Romola Garai played Rebecca who was the one thoughtful character. Elias Koteas, Olivia Williams, Johnny Harris, Goran Kostic, Tom Cullen, and Yusra Warsama were all part of the crew that suffered both the script and direction of this poorly conceived film. Sydney J. Bounds and Clive Dawson wrote this lame script. Ruairi Robinson directed this and he’s got a long way to go to figure out how to tell a story worth telling.

Overall:  Nothing about it made sense and there is no way this should have found a screen.

Atonement

First Hit: This is wonderful, thoughtful and elegantly written, acted, and photographed film.

The story is about a young girl named Briony, initially played by Saoirse Ronan, who sees a series of events which hurt her 13 year old feelings and in the misinterpretation of these events she knowingly implicates her sister’s lover Robbie (James McAvoy) in a case of assault and rape (although the charges are never clear).

She does this because her young confused heart is hurt. Her sister Cecilia, played by Keira Knightley, tells Robbie she loves him and will wait for him as he is being carted off to prison. However, he is given a choice of serving his country as a soldier in WWII instead of doing his prison time, which he chooses to do. He and Cecilia stay in contact via letters and it is through these letters you sense the depthness of their love for each other.

As Robbie travels to Dunkirk after losing many in his platoon we witness the devastation of Dunkirk and it gives us a great sense of the suffering the English Army took at this beachhead.

I was entranced with the characters and felt their feelings as I traveled through the film. There are three actresses that play Briony.

Besides Saoirse, there is Romola Garai (As the 18 year old), and Vanessa Redgrave as the 70 year old author who has written a book called “Atonement” which is her way to give Cecilia and Robbie the life they never had together.

The writing in this film is poetic and given the quality of the acting the story comes alive by intermixing some old film footage.

The direction was excellent and Joe Wright effectively uses the technique of letting the audience go through a couple of scenes twice, from two different viewpoints, to better understand how a scene affects each character differently in the expanded scene.

Editing of this film was also superb and created a great flow. The acting all the main characters was excellent. Keira and James were especially believable as their chemistry was sizzling and I continue to look forward to films to which they are attached.

Overall: This was an excellent film and deserves to be considered for awards.