Customer Reviews

Stranded

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

A sci-fi film from Spain directed by first-time director Maria Lidon (who appears as one of the crew here) features some internationally famous people -- Maria de Medeiros, who is perhaps best remembered as weepy girl-friend of Bruce Willis's character in "Pulp Fiction"; Joaquim Almeida who is seen in so many films including "Desperado"; and indie guy Vincent Gallo whose "Buffallo 66" was critically praised. The cast is interesting, and you can see one of the founding members of the punk rock group "The Ramones."

The story is similar to "Red Planet" and "Mission to Mars" but "Stranded" within its low-budget limitations ($4,000,000) gives a twist. First manned spaceship to Mars with international crew is launched, but its landing ship crashes on the surface of the planet, and the remaining members have to think about the way to survive. With limited equipment and damaged ship, their heated discussion goes nowhere until one of them (Vincent Gallo whose too logical character you love to despise) convinces them of one thing -- there's no way ALL of them can live to see the rescue ship.

They are forced to make a most difficult decision, and the film takes itself very seriously. Unfortunately, the similarity in terms of the plot with other Hollywood productions is undeniable when the film enters the last 30 minutes. There are, however, no over-the-top ending that is meant for surprise. Whether it works or not will depend on your taste and expectation. Some of the viewers might find it lacks the sense of closure; others think it realistic and philosophcal. Pick your choice.

The photography is in general beautifully shot, but you cannot hide the fact that the entite scenes are shot on somewhere on the Earth (in fact, Spain and Holywood soundstage). Some of the CGIs are fantastic, but they come far and few between. The most irritating part of the film to me is, that the film goes rather slowly with talk, talk, talk, and these stranded astronauts do not really look in danger. And it requires much amount of imagination to envision Maria de Mareiros in heavy spacesuit (according to my source, it was really heavy, and she didn't like it at all). Well, I can understand.

Shot in widescreen, the filmmakers show their enthusiasm to realize the bleak landscape of Mars, and to give some newness to the beaten road to Mars. But for all scientific data and good atmosphere, "Stranded" lacks something -- something that would surprise us, like the rotating cabin or the AI in "2001."

Stranded in my opinion is an intelligent thought provoking film that does not go for the glitz and glam that is the rot of Hollywood, for starters it's a Spanish film and also it didn't have a mega budget that a Hollywood film would have.

The plot is quite simple, a space shuttle crash lands on Mars, out of the six crew members, the Captain is killed on impact, and the other five are forced to evaluate their survival chances which even with rationing and conserving air and heat, there is little chance of them being alive if and when a rescue from earth eventually arrives.

The only chance any of them have if three of the five survivors leave the crashed ship, giving the remaining two a chance to survive until rescue arrives.

The three doomed crew members make their way to a valley of fog which has intrigued them since they have arrived, what lies under it, why is there a strong magnetic field all around it in patches, and it is under this fog filled valley that Mars amazing secret is revealed.

Vincent Gallo is great as the dour doom laden Luca who along with Maria de Medeiros who played Brue Willis' French girlfriend in Pulp Fiction get to stay in the crashed spaceship based on him being the ship's engineer and she being the ship's Doctor, whilst Joaquim de Almeida (Fidel), Daniel Aser (Sagan) and María Lidón (Susana) make their way to the valley of fog where they think they will die.

By far the best character in this film is María Lidón who is both fragile and strong as she walks a way to what she thinks will be her doom with her two companions, and the little known Aser was excellent as the optimistic Sagan whilst de Almeida was very believable as the cynical but good hearted Fidel.

There was a good soundtrack, no great special effects to talk about but what there was pretty good and didn't look at all tacky or unbelievable, all in all this was a really good film, it was not seat of your pants stuff but it was clever, it was also intelligent and most of all it was believable.

I am probably one of only a few people in the universe who has seen the merit of this film, though my one complaint is that they should not have dubbed it in English but left it in Spanish and had subtitles, but it is small complaint and does not detract too much from the movie itself.

Since there's confusion about the different movies entitled "Stranded" getting mixed up in the reviews and technical information, I'll note right away that I'm reviewing the 'Martian' film whose cover is pictured here on the product page; the film is actually directed by Maria Lidon, not Charles Beeson, who apparantly directed the other movie named "Stranded", which I've yet to see.

With that out of the way - this "Stranded" starts out in much the same way as alltime great "Mission To Mars", with the first manned flight to the red planet ending up meeting with an unexpected crisis upon their arrival, but from there quickly moves off into very different territory than "Mission". Much slower and of an entirely different atmosphere than most science fiction, this may come off as dull to some but if you don't mind a good change of pace this is a title that shouldn't be passed up just because of its obscure status. Space exploration movies have excelled in the departments of catacylsm and unknown dangers, but very few have gone the path of "Stranded" in approaching the crisis befalling the astronauts and the mysteries they uncover on Mars with the the quality airs of melancholy and tragedy seen here. That's not to say this is a depressing film without bright points, it's, well...it's hard to give an overall summation, and not just because I don't want to give the ending anyway.

With limited supplies and no realistic hope of an in-time rescue from Earth, the crew members split between those who stay behind with the downed craft in a desperate attempt to find some means for the team's survival, and those who decide to spend what little time they have exploring and chronicling all that they can of Mars, in the hopes of their data someday being retrieved. A powerful film, and a unique science fiction vision. Recommended.

I can't understand the horrible reveiws this movie is getting. I guess if you were born in 1990 and used to seeing explosions every 2 seconds, I guess you would hate this movie. However, if you were born anytime before that like I was where movies had character development and a story that sucks you into it and puts you in their place, then this is a great movie! Now, don't get me wrong, some of the acting is hokey, but the movie takes it's time like it should and the soundtrack helps you feel the lonlieness of space. To prove I'm not the only one that enjoyed this movie, I showed it to 2 other people at 2 separate times and they both enjoyed it as I did.
All I can say is, try it. Hey, we all get duped into seeing dumb movies that are pushed as blockbusters in the mainstream, so why not give this a shot. You may be surprised. TC

Note to NASA: if and when we ever get around to that long-overdue manned Mars mission, make sure you send an engineer who isn't a complete jerk who reacts to any problem by proclaiming that everyone is doomed to die a most horrible death. I would go so far as to recommend anyone looking like Rasputin be automatically disqualified from consideration. You might also want to make someone with some strong leadership ability second in command in case the landing vehicle crash lands and the captain (particularly if he's well past his prime) is killed on impact. I hate to say it, but you can tell this isn't an American-made movie because Americans would have figured out some way to survive against impossible odds - or at least died trying their utmost until the very end. The crew of the spaceship Aries just ignore the one guy trying to come up with ideas and jump on Dr. Doom's bandwagon.

In the golden age of science fiction, many a good film was made about Mars. Over the last decade or so, though - for reasons I certainly can't explain - you can pretty much count on any Mars-related movie being mind-numbingly boring and greatly disappointing. Stranded doesn't really fit any well-worn mold, but I would be lying if I said it was exciting or seemed to have any real purpose behind it. This Spanish film features a multi-national crew preparing to land the first human beings on the Red Planet. Alas, something goes wrong during the descent and the vehicle crashes way off target on the Martian surface. Luckily, there's a doctor onboard to verify that the obviously dead captain is in fact dead, leaving the six remaining crew members free to begin debating their options. This consists predominantly of one fellow offering ideas for extending their energy and oxygen supplies, our surly engineer Luka arguing that there's no use trying anything because they're all doomed, and the rest just sitting there like uninterested spectators. The final decision is quickly made, leaving the doomed (I mean "brave" "volunteers") to spend their last hours walking and filming the Red Planet, hoping to reach a puzzling anomalous area (dare I say plot point) before they take their last breaths.

On the one hand, what you have here is a fairly boring movie with an implausible and rather open-ended conclusion. On another level, though, I feel an odd attraction to this film. For one thing, it is not - on the whole - your typical science fiction faire. These characters confront the deadly risks of space travel in a way rarely seen in the science fiction genre. In addition to that, you can't help but care what happens simply because you hate the engineer so much. Furthermore, given the low budget, the filmmakers do an excellent job of simulating the Martian surface. In the end, I'm forced to conclude that this film actually works well for what it is - the question is whether or not the viewer will like it for what it is.

Like most foreign films, Stranded would have been much better served by the use of subtitles than dubbing. I had a lot of problems with the character of Susannah, the new captain by default and probably the central figure in the entire story, largely because the English dubbing of her part was just horrible. It's not that she's a terrible actress - the dubbing just makes her look like a terrible actress. I don't think I've ever disliked a character so much solely on the basis of the dubbing.

For any fan of low budget, character-study science-fiction, Stranded is certainly a disappointment. Five astronauts become marooned on Mars when their spaceship crash lands. With only a limited supply of oxygen they must decide who lives and who dies. The story has similarities to "Red Planet", "Mission to Mars" and an older film from the 60's called "Robinson Crusoe on Mars".

As another reviewer noted, one of the major problems with "Stranded" is it's chattiness. There's just too much talking in this movie. With such an errie setting as Mars, one would think that the visuals could carry this film. Instead, the majority of the movie is spent inside a cramped spaceship. All the while, the astronauts (supposedly the world's best and brightest) relentlessly argue among themselves (using up even more precious oxygen). In fact, you're left wondering how these unprofessional clowns ever got into the space program in the first place.

The other problem with this movie is its poor acting. With the exception of Joaquim de Almeida (who you may have seen as the NATO naval commander in "Behind Enemy Lines") the rest of the cast is mediocre at best. While the director attempts to do a character study of the five astronauts, it just doesn't fly when the acting isn't there.

Despite the above problems, Stranded is not a bad film. There are some interesting and well done CGI visuals of both the surface of Mars and the crew's spaceship. I just wish the director would have utilized these images more to bring across the hopelessness of these astronauts. However, if you enjoy movies about Mars, then this film is for you. A renter for sure.

I give it two stars for effort.

**Spoiler Alert** This review may contain spoilers.

This is a sleeper among the many Mars exploration films. The story is slow moving; there is no spectacular out-of-this-world battles, no eye-popping special effects, but there is a quiet beauty to the film.

The story was about six Mars explorers on a mission to Mars. The landing module crashed when it encountered unexplained magnetic & gravitational phenomenon, which disrupted its flight computer. The captain died in the crash and the five survivors soon learned that the wreckage could only support two persons for the 26-month wait until the rescue mission arrived. After much angry argument among themselves, the co-pilot (played by Maria Lidon), now in command, decided that the flight doctor (Maria de Mediros) and the flight engineer (Vincent Gallo) had the best chance of survival. The remaining three would leave the module and explore the area where they found the unexplained magnetic & gravitational anomaly, or die trying. It was a somber story of life and death, but there were moments of comedy: shortly after the three explorers left, the crashed module sprung a leak and gone was any hope of survival. The engineer, a young man, wanted to spend the remaining hours making love to the doctor, an attractive young woman, who, exasperated by the man's one-track-mindedness, unleashed her frustration on him in a big way. Little did they know the big surprise waiting for them all.

The film was starred by an international cast of American and Spanish actors & actresses, each speaking their native language. There is language dubbing no matter which spoken language you choose on your DVD. The Martian landscape was filmed on the Spanish island of Lanzarote and the indoor scenes at Panavision Studio in Hollywood. The film was made on a shoestring budget of 5 million dollars. To cut production cost, the sequence in the crashed module was filmed on the same space shuttle interior set used in the production of the film "Space Cowboys".

The director of the film, Maria Lidon, who also played the role of the co-pilot Susana Sanchez in the film, won the "Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver" while Vincent Gallo and Maria de Medeiros were named best actor and actress at the 2002 Fantafestival in Rome.

Okay, if your a discriminating sci-fi movie fan and you hated what was done in 'Mission to Mars' and want something a little more down to Earth...erm, Mars...without the hollywood flashy SFX and some 'real' non-american people. Then check this gem out and ignore the criticisms! This is not only a courageous film of integrity but the best 'Mars' movie I've seen so far. REALLY. The science is there and the landscapes are perfect. Their script needs some work as well as the acting but the english dub is the problem here more than anything else. Excellent Hard SF! Check it out. Great Accomplishment. Deserves more praise than it will get. Ofcourse if all you want is action and ILM than go see some other summer hollywood garbage that's proliferated the screen this year.

This movie was so BAD that I found myself fast forwarding through it. The intro/credits was hard to sit through, flashing between the credits and the crew while the descent to Mars is taking place. It should be titled "Ship of Fools" as this astronaut crew was totally in the dark as to the nature of their predicament and survival options. This movie plot was so contrived and ridiculous to the point of absurdity. The acting was the poorest I have ever seen. Not worth the price of a rental, let alone the purchase price. No entertainment value what soever.

Yep" Stranded" (2001) is a standard formula crash on mars. They make no attempt to slowly reveal the plot. It is an in-your-face yep someone's gotta go who gets to pick and where do they go story. But you knew this before you bought this movie.

Even though this film is foreign and some of the acting and reading is stilted we're still fascinated with the interaction of the characters and how they are going to get from point A to point Z. The film does not have to be original or professional; all it has to do is hold our attention and show us their version of the well-known story.

The two points that stand out to me are first how Luca Baglioni (Vincent Gallo) wants to spend his dying moments with Jenny Johnson (Maria de Medeiros.) We could've made book on that answer. The second which might've been a little drawn out but I enjoyed it anyway was the reference to Barsoom and Barsoom's characters; I have to expected John Carter pop out from behind the rocks.