It's a Hollywood mystery that people who gave us films as perfectly written as Wall E and Finding Nemo could have made so many story errors. Maybe this is being wise after the event, but why didn't they just follow the standard template of countless sci fi films about Earthlings helping oppressed people rise up and overthrow their rulers... (Flash Gordon, Stargate, The Time Machine)? I.e. show the whole story through the eyes of a time traveller, instead of opening it with a big battle sequence about people and aliens we don't know, then cutting away to other characters we have no investment in (e.g. Burroughs), and continually cutting to political intrigue on Mars. As if anyone cares. Why not make it clearer who the baddies are? Why not have some humour and warmth? Why not use the pursuing Colonel played by Bryan Cranston after all this set up? Why not have a comic relief? Why not make the female lead more independent?
There are other errors too - Taylor Kitsch is atrocious, playing it in the mode of a Valley Boy, and Lynn Collins is bad too. The English actors do their I'm-an-English-actor-in-a-fantasy-film thing, with Dominic West and James Purefoy both must have been aware they would have been better in the lead. Plenty of action and and some impressive special effects but it drags and drowns in noise. I feel bad on one hand that this film lost so much money so publicly but I understand why it happened.
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