Released a year after The Matrix, this $80 million sci-fi flop was completely forgotten – Movie News

Even Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss couldn't save space blockbuster Red Planet from sinking, a film that suffered huge losses…for obvious reasons.

In 1999, Matrix triggered one of the biggest media buzzes in the history of cinema. Everyone wanted to look like Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves with cool sunglasses and long leather jackets. Science fiction was booming. A year later, Carrie-Anne Moss was back and delivered what might (or might not) have been the next big sci-fi action movie: the space adventure Red Planet which, unfortunately, no one remembers.

17 million more than Matrix

If Matrix cost $63 million and grossed over $460 million at the box office, Red Planetit cost even more, namely around 80 million dollars of budget and… 33 million dollars brought in at the box office!

The only film by director Antony Hoffman, Red Planet failed to excite either critics or audiences, leaving much to be desired, despite the presence in the cast of Val Kilmer (Heat) and Carrie-Anne Moss. And the consensus is pretty clear: 1.9 out of 5 by AlloCiné viewers, 34 points out of 100 at Metacritic, 5.7 out of 10 at Moviepilot, only 14% of favorable reviews at Rotten Tomatoes… That says it all.

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The plot of the film starts off promisingly. The colonization of Mars is being prepared because Earth will soon be uninhabitable. In 2057, a scientific team must go to the red planet to investigate a problem as part of a large-scale project. However, the sci-fi thriller then gets lost in unnecessary accidents, rampaging robots, poor CGI and poorly crafted dialogue.

As tough spaceship pilot Commander Kate Bowman, Carrie-Anne Moss is great, but her performance can't make up for the lack of originality of an entire film.

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After Matrixeveryone wanted more, and yet there was no resounding success on the sci-fi side of cinema for a long time. Almost no one remembers films like Virtual Past and Mission to Mars, which started in the wake of the saga with Keanu Reeves. Red Planet is no exception.

Not only science fiction fans preferred to watch Matrix a second time, but Red Planet was also in direct competition with the planet Mars itself, which had already been at the heart of Mission to Marsreleased a few months earlier, and which had quenched the thirst of spectators on the subject. But even Mission to Mars failed to live up to expectations, writes film magazine Collider. In 2000, people simply weren't interested in the planet, but rather in artificial realities here on Earth.

If you still want to form your own opinion and especially see Carrie-Anne Moss and Val Kilmer in Red Planet, the film can be found on VOD.

Otherwise, the original Matrix trilogy can be watched again in streaming on Max.