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 "Stranded on Mars with only a monkey as a companion, an astronaut must figure
out how to find oxygen, water, and food on the lifeless planet." There is no
real video or DVD release for this yet. There was a laserdisc release back in
1994 and a VHS release back in the eighties, but it's been MIA since. 1964, 110 minutes, VHS
Every month when I check out the new movies being released on DVD from
companies like Image, Anchor Bay, and the raft of foreign companies that cough
up obscure horror flicks in those ridiculous Region 2 Pal formats that prevent
most of us fans in the U.S. from ever seeing them (though the "real" fanboys
and gals can find a way to see anything they want, right?), I marvel that even
the cruddiest Ted V. Mikels film can get the attention that you would expect to
see lavished on a Brando movie (earlier rather than later, I'm not talking
about The Freshman or The Score here). But you know, I try so hard to control
my temper. Jean and the kids at the Freedom School tell me that I can't
resolve all the world's problems by watching half-assed bootleg copies of
sci-fi films. But then I see a movie like Robinson Crusoe on Mars and I see this beautiful little film and I think about how it's going to have
to carry around the burden of knowing that a movie like Zombie has been released on DVD about six different times already and it just makes
me want to go CRAZY (scene of MonsterHunter's big smelly bare foot kicking the
chief of Paramount Pictures upside his bald head). My Billy Jack flashback
having ended, I can tell you that the point remains that what you have with RCOM is that rarest of birds: an intelligently done survival tale (aside from the
dubious science) with the
absurdly spectacular drive-in title. Whereas a movie like Invasion Of The Saucer-Men lives up (or down depending on your orientation) to its title, this one is
like that movie
that Tom Hanks made about being a castaway or something. I don't recall the
title, but he was cast away from civilization onto some fancy island and by
doing a bunch of stupid stuff he ended up dating a volleyball. Oh, the movie
was okay since I only paid like two bucks to rent it, but really, was there
anything in the contract I signed at my video store that said I had to stare at
Tom Hanks' skanky chest for in excess of two hours? I suppose that was
simply part of my own survival tale. I know some of you snobs out there are
still a bit reticent to believe that RCOM could be better than any thing Hankie
could ever do.
The only thing you need to know is that while Hanks co-stars with a piece of
sporting equipment (and not even a cup, for crying out loud!), the dude who's
trying to survive in RCOM is helped by his little monkey pal, Mona.  One of the amazing things about this movie is that it's so enjoyable and only
stars three people (and a monkey) and one of those people is Adam West. Adam
plays Colonel Dan McReady, the dude in charge of this two-man/one-monkey mission
to Mars. Right away, this movie distinguishes itself from the bulk of these
outer space adventures when you see that instead of their ship being this
really big room with tables of pseudo-scientific gizmos (levers, dials, and
blinking buttons are tres-futuristic!) it's this cramped little space where
both guys have to be in separate compartments and communicate via a video
screen. There's no goofy old professor smoking a pipe wondering if something
strange awaits them the surface, there's no sex-ay homemaker/woman astronaut
that
does the typing and fixes the dinner, and I don't remember anyone lighting up a
cancer-stick on board neither. Adam plays it remarkably straight as well
causing me to breath a sigh of relief (I had feared that along with the monkey,
they would have packed a bunch of ham on board as well). At this point in time
it looks like Col. Dan is going to be our main character, but you know how
those dang runaway meteors can play havoc with the command structure as well as
the plot. Before you know it, Col. Dan has to make some kind of fancy u-turn
with the ship and has to expend all the fuel getting themselves into some kind
of orbit where the won't get pulled down into Mars by the planet's gravity.
Col. Dan and his partner, Commander Draper, eject in separate escape pods where
they are promptly pulled down into Mars by the planet's gravity. Draper makes
what we in the astro biz call a "hard landing" and somehow survives the impact
to crawl out and try to get a sense of what he's got himself into. First he
finds out that he can't breathe the air on Mars for too long before he needs a
dose of good old American oxygen. Kind of would of been nice to figure all
that out before lifting up your helmet visor and taking a big whiff of Martian
stink, but I guess if we knew all this we wouldn't need to be tromping around
down there anyway (when Batman wrecked their ship, they were on their way home
- wouldn't the make-up of the atmosphere be one of the measurements that they
would have taken?). Draper goes off to find a little shelter and take stock of
his situation.  Once inside this cave, Draper goes about the business of surviving in the
inhospitable conditions. He figures there's enough oxygen to last about sixty
hours, water to last about 2 weeks, and it will be four to six weeks before Sports
Illustrated gets his subscription changed over to the new address. He knows
that he needs to figure out a heat source to survive the cold nights and the
oxygen problem before he deals with anything else. He also needs to go and
find Adam West (Have you tried your local shopping mall?). Draper walks over
the desolate landscape (the movie makes good use of its Death Valley locations)
and soon comes upon the wreckage of Col. Dan's escape pod. Draper looks around
and sees Col. Dan's arm outstretched from beneath the wreckage, a really sweet
class ring on one of the fingers. Draper calls out to him (I'm sure Col. Dan
is just taking a nap there in the dirt underneath the twisted metal (keeps him
out of the sun you know - good for one's complexion) and Draper peeks into a
hole ripped in the wreckage and makes that "eww, Col. Dan's landing was a lot
harder than mine" face and I'm thinking that you don't want to forget that dope
ring. That might be just the thing to trade a dumb Martian for something like
a spaceship with warp drive so you can get home. It's just like when Andrew
Jackson bought Manhattan from the Indians with some money that had with his own
face
on it! Well, he takes the ring and then he spots a furry tail sticking up from
behind a rock. Concerned that the Martians in these parts have monkey tails
that are no doubt tipped with a fast-acting toxin that is poisonous to intrepid
American astro tough guys, he points his way futuristic revolver at it (as good
as the film is, the astronauts are armed like taking a space trip was like
going to the old west or Gary, Indiana. Before he can bust a cap in Mona's ass,
she shows herself and Draper is jacked that he is going to be having monkey
stew tonight! Actually, he takes Mona back to his cave and prepares to
die since he never found any oxygen to replenish his tanks. He tells Mona to
go ahead and eat all the rations she wants so that she at least could die on a
full stomach and then he lays down next to the fire (he found some strange
rocks that he got to burn) and passes out, the oxygen finally exhausted. 
Draper wakes up and realizes that the rocks have given off oxygen as
they burned. He theorizes that the rocks must be a strange rock where oxygen
is trapped inside of them (that's why they could burn in the first place). I
theorized that Commander Draper was one lucky dude. Oxygen problem solved,
Draper starts fretting about the lack of water he has (This is a guy who's
always
going to worry about something, no matter how good he has it - first oxygen,
then water - what's next? Food?). Even as he rations water, he notices that
Mona never seems too thirsty. Combine that with the fact that Mona runs off
all day to some secret locale and Draper has the makings of a plan so crazy it
just might work. It goes something like this: follow Mona to her secret
watering hole. He tracks her as she runs off into the rocky desert and the
next thing you know Commander Draper is falling through a hole in the ground
and landing in a heap at Mona's secret watering hole. I love it when a plan
comes together. Course it probably would have been easier if he gone in the
way Mona went, but the important thing is that the fall didn't bust him up too
badly. While there, Draper also discovers some seaweed sausages or something
that is almost as good to eat as the paste he had been eating out of the
toothpaste tubes. You know if I was an astronaut and they were going to make
me eat those cruddy paste meals, I would refuse to go anywhere until they
developed a grilled cheese flavored one. Man do I love grilled cheeses! Later
Draper is wandering around and finds the grave of a humanoid creature. He runs
back to the cave he calls home and takes down his American flag, pulls up the
welcome mat, then blows up his ship that orbits above via remote control so
that no one will know he's there. Then he sees a ship flying around and
follows it. This ship is blasting rocks with laser beams and before you know
it a
big tan guy with a Sonny Bono haircut is lumbering around trying to not get his
big tan ass blowed off. Draper has the dude come and stay with him.
Eventually he calls this guy Friday (interestingly, Draper never refers to
himself as Robinson Crusoe, but does compare himself to Christopher Columbus,
probably because he was in the wilderness by himself so long that he couldn't
wait to ride the Nina, if you know what I mean!). Friday is an escaped slave
of these other humanoids who are from another planet and just on Mars mining
some ore. I'm not real sure how Draper got all that from Friday's grunting and
hand gestures that all looked like the same sweeping motion to me, but I guess
they probably train for this situation down at Cape Kennedy when they're in
space camp. It turns out that these mining dudes really want their slave back and they keep
returning in their ships to blast the ground and harass Draper and Friday.
This was the part of the movie that didn't make a lot of sense to me. If he was
just a slave, why bother trying to get him back? The point that he was
expendable is really driven home when Draper and Friday happen onto a mining
site where all his people that were enslaved and brought to Mars with him had
been killed by the miners. What's the point of wasting all those resources
(several spaceships scouring Mars) to kill one dude? It keeps them on the move
though and they end up at the polar ice cap and are freezing to death and then
things heat up and the movie ends with a pretty easy wrap-up considering how
realistic they had concentrated on making things in the rest of the movie
(well, as realistic as you can be when you have Adam West piloting your most
advanced spaceship and you end up living on Mars with a monkey as your
roommate). An excellent film all the way around, it constantly surprises you
with its efforts to keep things authentic, with Draper concentrating on
locating the basic needs to survive instead of battling fearsome looking
monsters and leering at buxom space honeys (though that sounds like a good
movie as well). Paul Mantee plays Commander Draper with the right mix of
resolve and desperation. Determined to stay alive, he improvises, tries to
stay focused, but also can't help but have moments of disillusionment. Mantee
never lapses into drama queen territory here though he could have (see Heston
in Planet of the Apes) and raged and whined against the unfairness of it all. Draper says that he
was
trained for two months in an isolation chamber but that was different because
he knew he would be coming out of it. Now he believes he's never going to see
anyone again. He even starts to fall asleep standing up and thinking that his
pal Col. Dan is back from the dead. The hopelessness of it all would overwhelm
the best of us after awhile and it may have done so with Draper, but for
Friday's fortuitous appearance. Where Draper saves Friday from the immediate
threat from above, Friday likewise saves Draper from a solitary existence,
something that would eventually have killed him just as surely as a laser blast
from above (maybe worse - to be driven mad, but left alive to wander Mars by
yourself). The use of the Death Valley locations and the infrequent use of bad
special effects make us believe that he is on another world and that his
survival is anything but assured. In a movie like this, you're always waiting
for the other shoe to drop, when is that really stupid part going to happen?
This time it doesn't and if you want to quibble with the tacked on happy ending
that's your business, but I think after everything Draper went through, he
deserves it. Mona, too.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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