The Last Days On Mars

Alas, the film quickly loses its offbeat charm and devolves into a routine monster movie.

Appealing as that might sound to the walking-dead obsessed, this modest, low-budget sci-fi thriller is fatally lacking in entertainment value.

In the ways that "The Last Days on Mars" is like a horror movies, it's typical, and in the ways it's different, it's mostly flat.

"The Last Days on Mars" seems like it could deliver ... thought-provoking goods - at least until the plot devolves into Zombies in Outer Space.

[A] low-budget, highly predictable, but well-acted Red Planet thriller ...

The acting is convincing across the board, especially Schrieber's, despite being saddled with such dialogue inanities as saying "you're gonna be all right" to a crewmate who is zombifying before his very eyes.

Old fashioned, straightforward, entertaining sci-fi horror.

From the get-go, Last Days on Mars looks like a film which the parties involved put about half their effort and care into.

Once danger presents itself and the screaming starts, it all becomes a basic space horror film that plucks tropes from the peg and rarely does anything interesting with them.

Our band of estimable actors have to contend with a storm of B-movie dialogue and the remorseless hammer blows of a stock horror plot line.

Consistently solid acting, smart direction and striking imagery cannot overcome a hackneyed storyline that cobbles together stale ideas and scenarios to a fittingly alienating effect.

This sci-fi drama begins promisingly but loses its way in the Martian dust.