Bullet Points: Mars
It is doubtful that anyone would argue that Arnold Schwarzenegger is not one of the biggest action movie stars in history, but in the event someone would be foolish enough to question Arnold’s place in action movie history, there are two strong indicators you could throw in their face. First and foremost, the box office numbers… Arnold Schwarzenegger drew some serious money. Second is the slew of copycats that tried to piggyback off the success of the first two Terminator films. If a producer is going to borrow an idea, that producer is going to borrow an idea that made money and that is why the action/sci-fi genres were blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view) with and endless supply of movies about unstoppable cyborgs, androids and robots.
But The Terminator was not the only Arnie movie to inspire other action films. I could not help but see the influence of Arnold’s 1990 hit Total Recall all over 1997’s Mars starring Olivier Gruner.
- Cold Open: The movie begins with an out of context foot chase in the underground corridors of a mining colony on Mars between a guy who is attempting to smuggle an infant off the planet and a group of toughs with guns. The chase ends when the running man makes it to the surface of the planet, but the bad guys shoot him and the infant dead. The man’s dying word was “Caution”.
- Proceed With Caution: Olivier Gruner plays Caution Templer (nice name!), Caution works as a “keeper” for the Inter-Planetary Mining Corporation (or IPC as they abbreviate it in the movie). Keepers are brought in when there is trouble at one of IPC’s mining operations. We find out that the guy at the beginning of the movie that was shot was also a keeper working for IPC and a murdered employee more than qualifies as trouble. But it is not just business for Caution Templer, it is personal. The keeper that was shot was actually Caution’s brother, Ino Templer (nice name!) When Caution goes to the mining colony’s medical facility to examine his brother’s body and see if he can access the memory chip that was implanted in his brother to find out who killed him and why, he meets Doc Halliday (Shari Belafonte). Halliday is not too keen on one of IPC’s hired guns being in her lab, because quite frankly she doesn’t like the IPC at all. Halliday has an unpopular theory that the Silex, the new energy source for the future, that is being mined on Mars is also the cause of the Martian Plague Virus that has killed many miners and put even more in quarantine. When Caution and Halliday got off on the wrong foot, I couldn’t help but think these two would be in bed together within the next 30 minutes of the film. They didn’t take things that far, but Caution and Halliday do eventually put their differences aside and work together when they both become targets for the IPC.
- Corrupt Management: IPC’s mining colony on Mars is helmed by Mr. Phillip Clement (Alex Hyde-White), on the surface Clement acts like he wants to help Caution in any way he can… but in reality Clement is the guy who ordered his goon squad led by the sadistic Ike Ringo (Lindsey Ginter) to kill Ino Templer after Ino knocked up a stripper. Apparently it is perfectly legal to fall in love with a stripper on Mars, but babies are a big no no on the Red Planet… which is why Ino was trying to get his child off the planet and the reason Ino and his child ended up dead… Now realizing that there could be big trouble when Caution figures all of this out, Mr. Clement has ordered Ike Ringo and his crew to eliminate Caution Templer from the equation too! The death order by Clement creates plenty of opportunities to showcase Gruner’s fighting skills against Ringo and company, which serves as the bulk of the action scenes in the movie.
If Mars was an attempt to make Total Recall on an extremely low budget, I would say it missed the mark. But, the Mars setting does help Mars stand out from the average direct to video action movies of its time and it is one of the more unique entries in Olivier Gruner’s filmography. An action star can only fight in so many underground fight circuits, Mars gave Olivier Gruner a chance to kick ass on another planet, and kicking ass is something Gruner does extremely well.
Something I do extremely well is provide the readers of Bulletproof Action with some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Faces: Lee de Broux plays Sheriff Bascom, the head of security of ICP’s mining colony on Mars. You might recognize Lee from his work in movies like Robocop and Open Fire… Voyo Goric, who I will always remember as Sgt. Hartog in Lionheart, was a member of Ike’s crew sporting a ridiculous looking mullet… Scott Valentine, probably most famous for his role as Nick on the 80’s sitcom Family Ties, played Pete the Hermit. Pete had been on Mars from the beginning of the mining operation and served as the Kuato of the movie, giving Caution the knowledge dump he needed.
- AKA: In Olivier Gruner’s native France, Mars was released with the slightly longer title of Mars 2056.
- Different Planet, Same Rule: If a guy goes into a bar asking questions in an action movie, whether that movie takes place on Earth or on Mars, an obligatory bar fight has to break out.
- Dubstep: Either Olivier Gruner’s delivery of the English language got a lot better in 1997 or all of his dialogue in Mars was dubbed.
- Sidekick: One character I really need to point out before I wrap up this review was Buckskin Greenberg (nice name!) At first Buckskin is sent to mess with Caution Templer by Ike Ringo when our hero first arrives on Mars. But Buckskin had the good sense to realize that was a losing battle and ends up becoming a sidekick of sorts for Caution.
