The Last Days on Mars is about an eight-person international research team stationed on Mars preparing to return to Earth with no solid findings. The tension and suspicion among the team members is palpable and exasperated by competition and frustration. The Last Days on Mars does not give us time to get to know the characters before the crap hits the fan, and people turn into smart, fast zombies infected by Martian bacteria. The Last Days on Mars is not a must see sci-fi horror film, but if you like the cast and the genre, then at 98 minutes long, it is a mildly entertaining diversion.
The Last Days on Mars really benefited from having an excellent cast of actors that could inform us of who each character is without a lot of narrative investment. Liev Schreiber plays the burly, inventive, even-tempered, but claustrophobic researcher. Olivia Williams, a Joss Whedon favorite, plays Kim, the bitch everyone hates, but needs. Romola Garai, who is best known for starring in Amazing Grace, is the affable, possible love interest for Schreiber’s character. Goran Kostic plays the unscrupulous Serb. Yusra Warsama plays the morally grounded doctor. Elias Koteas gets cast against type as the soft-spoken, but perhaps too understanding leader. Johnny Harris plays the passive aggressive family man counselor who really wants to get home and seems like a nice, emphatic guy, but is still pissed that he did not get that last slice of pizza on game night and has never forgotten. Tom Cullen plays the easily misled, triggered crewmember who probably should not have made the cut, but someone was missing at role call, and he was available.
The Last Days on Mars has great bones, but does not work for three reasons. First, the layout of the space station is really crucial to understanding the zombie threat, but I never really had a sense of where the camera and the characters were in relation to the entire area. The fight scenes were too chaotic cinema so while I understood what ultimately happened, as it was unfolding, I had no idea where anyone was going.
Second, The Last Days on Mars is too lazy in using problematic communication systems. Third, The Last Days on Mars correctly followed the Alien rule by diversifying the all male crew into a male and female crew, but should have kept following its logic. The Last Days on Mars wants to make Schreiber’s character the hero, but Kim is more inherently interesting and the focus of the film from the beginning. Kim propels the plot forward, and once she is sidelined, it is a shocking scene, but the momentum comes to a halt, and the denouement becomes predictable. The minute that Schreiber and Harris’ characters must compete for resources, it is no contest. Schreiber is Ray Donovan, which I have never seen, but still. Sorry, Harris, but no one thinks that you can take Schreiber. Olivia Williams made the character and The Last Days on Mars too interesting.
The Last Days on Mars needed a better editor and perhaps a couple more script revisions to really work. The Last Days on Mars had all the classic elements of a great sci-fi horror film, but ultimately fell flat in execution. Still The Last Days on Mars is still worth watching for the acting and the fast, smart zombies.