John Carpenter
Fantasmi Da Marte

This film is not "Escape From New York", Ice Cube is not Kurt Russell, unresolved plot points are there and visible. Yet, "Ghosts of Mars" manages, despite its two-dimensionality, to adequately fulfill the role that the great John Carpenter had set for himself: to make a fun, light-hearted, and visually captivating film. This film is nothing more than that. In the near future, a colony of miners on the Red Planet is suddenly massacred by unknown forces, and a handful of survivors, obviously few and unprepared, fight for survival. The flashy black rapper plays the classic notorious criminal fighting for good.

In this science fiction action film (with horror tones and details, but without moments of true fright), Carpenter retraces/pays homage to various themes already established in his other movies: the tribal warriors recall the urban gangs of the Duke ("Escape From New York"), the spirits of the aliens transferring from one body to another evoke "The Thing"; and obviously Ice Cube just lacks the famous "call me Snake" to be a perfect clone of Plissken.

The action parts, quite simple albeit with some brutality, are successful, as is the flashback on the return of the ancient alien civilization and the transformation of the colonists which are definitely among the key scenes of the film. Some banal characters and some clunky scenes, like a somewhat predictable ending, are the flaws of this feature, lacking the usual pronounced sociopolitical hints; perhaps the aliens want their land back, driving out those who took it only to exploit it? This aspect is probably almost coincidental.

A mention of the music, mostly composed by the director as always: even in this case, while performing its role adequately and perfectly functionally, the various tracks fail to reach the atmospheric peaks of various "Assault On Precinct 13 Main Theme" or others, which remain untouchable despite (or precisely because of) their exquisitely vintage flavor.