The Last Days on Mars
- Review Date: December 6, 2013
- Rated: R
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Release Year: 2013
- Running Time: 98 minutes
Common Sense Media says
Dreary space zombie sci-fi tale gets bloody and gross.
- Review Date: December 6, 2013
- Rated: R
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Release Year: 2013
- Running Time: 98 minutes
The Last Days on Mars gallery
What parents need to know
Positive role models
Violence
Sex
Language
Consumerism
Drinking, drugs, & smoking
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Last Days on Mars is a sci-fi/horror movie about astronauts on Mars who discover bacteria that turns people into zombies. Expect a good measure of sci-fi violence, with some blood and gore. Both humans and zombies are attacked, beaten, and stabbed. When humans turn into zombies, the images of their faces distorting is pretty disturbing. The other major issue is language, with several uses of both "f--k" and "s--t."
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What's the story?
The first manned mission to Mars is nearing its end. Tempers flare and personalities clash when one of the crew members makes an important discovery: some kind of bacteria. Life on Mars. Unfortunately, his discovery, and his impetuous behavior, leads to a tragic accident: a cave-in. As his colleagues try to save him, they make a horrific realization. The bacteria turns dead bodies into raging zombies! It's up to Vincent Campbell (Liev Schreiber) to try and save as many of his crew members as he can before the zombies -- who don't need space suits to survive -- take over.
Is it any good?
QUALITY
It takes a certain kind of attitude to pull off a movie as ridiculous as this one, and director Ruairi Robinson simply doesn't have it. Rather than cheerful and energetic, he turns in a movie that's dreary and annoying. Worse, all of the big zombie attack sequences are shot with such awful, shaky hand-held camerawork that it's nearly impossible to see what's going on. In one sequence, a character hits an alarm, which -- for some reason -- makes the lights flash on and off so that not even the characters can see anything.
The humans have no depth or chemistry. The central character is given one of those handy backstories that includes flashbacks to "something terrible that once happened." The others do nothing but complain and snap at one another. In other words, if the zombies won in this movie, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
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Movie details
| Theatrical release date: | December 6, 2013 |
| DVD release date: | March 4, 2014 |
| Cast: | Liev Schreiber, Olivia Williams, Romola Garai |
| Director: | Ruairi Robinson |
| Studios: | Magnet Releasing, Magnolia Pictures |
| Genre: | Science Fiction |
| Topics: | Monsters, ghosts, and vampires |
| Run time: | 98 minutes |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | violence and language |
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