Mission to Mars

To: Director Brian De Palma

Re: How to make your movie suck less.

1) Good idea to pay homage to all the great space epics with a story taking place in the year 2025 about four people traveling to Mars to discover the origin of life on Earth. Bad idea to steal the most obvious scenes from 2001, Close Encounters, The Abyss, Apollo 13, and all the daytime soaps.

2) Give us more sweeping vistas of the red, barren Mars landscape (quite lovely), fewer cartoonish, computer-generated aliens (reeks of desperation).

3) Nobody looks heroic bouncing around in zero gravity in a spacesuit. You can add all the overdramatic dialogue you want, but they still look like chubby blow-up dolls.

4) Speaking of drama: what's with the melodramatic soundtrack -- the cheesy organs, flutes and strings? Even in space, everybody can hear you trying too hard to create tension.

5) Keep Tim Robbins and (believe it or not) Jerry O'Connell. They make the movie bearable (only just). The rest of the cast lack personality and sincerity -- they can be replaced with cardboard cutouts and people from toothpaste ads.

6) Remake the previews and pitch it as a comedy, because the whole thing is laughable. At the Harbour Mall, Holiday, Showcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Jumana Farouky