In 1975, Disneyland opened Mission to Mars, a cost-conscious update of their Flight to the Moon attraction, which simulated interplanetary travel using vibrating seats and multiple 16mm projectors. It closed in 1992, and was eventually replaced by Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port. Eight years after its closure, Mission to Mars would enjoy the distinction of being the first Disneyland ride to receive a theatrical film adaptation (preceding The Country Bears, Pirates of the Caribbean, and two different iterations of The Haunted Mansion). If Mission to Mars the attraction was a thrifty repurposing of a Disney holding past its prime, its movie adaptation, an all-ages tentpole budgeted at $100 million and helmed by Scarface and Dressed to Kill director Brian De Palma, was anything but. It’s the year 2020 and the first manned expedition to Mars has successfully landed on the planet’s surface, an unforgivingly hostile landscape that summarily terminates the entire crew, save commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle). Luke’s best friend Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), a classic space melodrama hero with a dead wife to make proud, charges ahead on an equally disastrous rescue mission which will kill more of his friends and end with the secrets of the cosmos revealed to the bedraggled survivors. Upon release, Mission to Mars ran afoul of mainstream American critics affronted by its undiluted sentimentality and genial space woo-woo, their dismissals stoking full-throated defenses from Cahiers du Cinéma (who placed it in their top ten of the year alongside films by Chantal Akerman and Edward Yang) and assorted De Palma auteurists for whom the film’s excellence was inextricable from its director’s formal trademarks. Featuring a stately and lush score from frequent De Palma collaborator Ennio Morricone.

Preceded by: “Our Lady of the Sphere” (Lawrence Jordan, 1969) – 10 min – 35mm from Canyon Cinema

Though he does not have the reputation of Brad Pitt or the acclaim of Sean Penn, in the 1990s, Tim Robbins rapidly established himself as the most reliable leading man in Hollywood, equally adept as both a vulnerable audience insert and a smirking anti-hero. With his slicked-back hairdo and sizeable stature (standing at 2 meters tall), Robbins had a naturalistic watchability that made him the perfect anchor for some of the most acclaimed films of the decade and a muse for vaunted auteurs from Robert Altman to Brian De Palma.

In the 21st century, the aging Robbins has shrewdly shifted his attention to supporting roles, including one in Mystic River (2003), which earned him a much-deserved Academy Award. Recently, it has been the role of independent filmmakers to utilize most of his talents and producers at HBO, who cast Robbins as the Secretary of State in the cruelly overlooked miniseries The Brink. And then, of course, there’s his respectable output behind the camera: 1992’s Bob Roberts adapted a cult comedy caricature from Saturday Night Live into one of the finest political satires of the post-Cold War era, whereas Dead Man Walking’s musings about life on death row earned leading lady Susan Sarandon an Oscar.

This top 10 list will act as both an overview of Robbins’ decades-long contributions to American cinema and an evaluation of his finest performances to date, including stone-cold classics and underrated gems.

10. Mission to Mars (2000)

 

Mission to Mars is certainly the gutsiest film ever to take its name from a Disneyland ride. Brian De Palma‘s direction is typically virtuosic, Ennio Morricone’s score imbues the entire film with sweeping spectacle, and the cast is stacked with some of the era’s most reliable performers. The result is a film both admirable in its ambition and visual clarity but restrained in its execution due to studio interference and shoddy visual effects. Whilst Gary Sinise leads the cast, it’s Robbins who, as Commander Blake, gives the most rewarding performance with a distinctive character arc ending with the ultimate sacrifice and the movie’s most memorable scene.

As Saving Private Ryan realizes, in a story centering on the recovery of a person, the audience’s desire to see the character found is as much motivated by the search party’s likability as it is sympathy for the missing person. For all of its myriad flaws, Mission to Mars understands this, and the dynamics between the traveling space crew are fully realized, and the chemistry between the performers is palpable. Don’t be dissuaded by the poor reviews from some critics. Mission to Mars is a worthwhile revisit whose influence on subsequent sci-fi epics (The Martian in particular) is undeniable.