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Outer space's dusty frontier, a proper place for genre cinema to die and be reborn. Mars in the future is a terraformed matriarchy, a mysterious force "leaves behind only silence and death," the police lieutenant handcuffed in the empty train (Natasha Henstridge) has a tale to tell. The mission is to retrieve a prisoner (Ice Cube) in a mining town, getting there means turning down advances from commander (Pam Grier) and sergeant (Jason Statham) alike. "Maybe I'd sleep with you if you were the last man on Earth. But we're not on Earth." Headless cadavers welcome the posse, "a martial law situation," guards and deputized jailbirds face hordes of settlers turned possessed, pierced barbarians. John Carpenter's last word on the celluloid arena "where ignorant armies clash by night," a recomposition of Assault on Precinct 13 consciously containing elements from virtually all his other works. Ancient hieroglyphs crumble at the touch of a hand into roaring red ash, Pandora the archeologist (Joanna Cassidy) can't help admiring what she's unleashed. "What a perfect creation. Vengeance on anything or anyone that tries to lay claim to their planet." A feral bruiser (Richard Cetrone) leads the Martian insurgency, the heroine is unmoved by the realization that humans are the invaders, "dominion" is her byword. (With a machine-gun in each hand, her comrade offers a blunter outlook: "Come on, you mindless motherfuckers!") A grand jamboree of barricades and dismemberments, couched in flashbacks within flashbacks and oneiric profusions of dissolves and wipes. The maudit voyages of De Palma (Mission to Mars) and Hill (Supernova) are close, so is the Ulmer of Beyond the Time Barrier. The Carpenter aesthetic credo to the finish, "let's just kick some ass." With Clea DuVall, Liam Waite, Duane Davis, Lobo Sebastian, Rodney A. Grant, Peter Jason, Wanda De Jesus, Robert Carradine, Rosemary Forsyth, and Doug McGrath.
--- Fernando F. Croce |