Liev Schreiber is the nominal star of The Last Days of Mars. Some of the crew in a martian base come across some bacteria which turns them into zombies and re-animates them.

They return to the base and attack the others eventually turning them into zombies. The survivors need to get off the red planet.

This is a low budget film that is rather derivative. John Carpenter did it marginally better with a bigger budget in Ghosts of Mars. George Romero made better zombies films with a lower budget.

You just watch this in amazement as to how stupid the crew behave. People come to life and the crew does not know how to get rid of them. People get infected and the crew thinks they will stay dead. It is awful stuff.

Once again we have a film detailing a mission to Mars that goes awfully wrong and once again the film's antagonist of choice is the zombie. Zombies on Mars? Did nobody watch John Carpenter's GHOSTS OF MARS and think that, you know, maybe that wasn't such a good idea? I've seen a few movies detailing catastrophic trips to Mars now (RED PLANET is my favourite of a rather average bunch, it has be said) but THE LAST DAYS ON MARS isn't one of the better ones.

The problems with the film are twofold. First off, the script is entirely derivative and the writer seems to think that we won't notice that it rips off ALIEN quite extensively, albeit with a little PROMETHEUS-inspired modernising. Secondly, the direction is terrible. The dialogue scenes are okay but as soon as the action hits, the director opts for awful shaky-cam work that detracts from the experience, and pointlessly jumbled editing that makes the whole thing rather confusing. Giving control of this film to a first time director wasn't a very clever idea.

Those were the bad things but there is some good stuff here, namely the film's cast. The reliable old-timer Elias Koteas has a predictable role as the group leader but he's typically efficient in the part. Romola Garai is surprisingly good as she always is in her performances. I didn't used to care for Liev Schreiber very much but he has been growing on me recently. Olivia Williams, Tom Cullen, and Yusra Warsama aren't really very good at all but they don't get too much screen time and Johnny Harris builds on the creepy persona he had in the THIS IS ENGLAND TV series.

The film does have a good pacing and there are few slow spots so it's just a pity that what does take place on screen is so derivative. I liked the look of the zombies as it's pretty scary but the action is predictable and you can guess the ending from the outset. Plus I was never convinced that the film really was taking place on Mars as it looks much more like the Jordanian desert. Couldn't they have given it a red filter or something?

A scientific mission on its last days on Mars. They are on edge as they wait for the pickup and a trip back to Earth. Marko finds possible life and keeps it from the rest of the team. As he investigates the site, a cavern opens up beneath him. After another crewman disappears, two members descend into the pit to find growing life in the dark.

This is a derivative sci-fi horror which borrows from some of the best whether it's Alien or other zombie movies. Surprisingly, there is a good solid cast, a good production, and a functional script. The directing is perfunctory and lacks the inventiveness to be interesting. This just doesn't have it.