Brian De Palma shelved the Hitchcock homages just long enough to ape another esteemed cinematic master — Stanley Kubrick — for a foray into big-budget sci-fi, Mission to Mars. The epic space odyssey aims very much to be another 2001 — the mystery is well in place; the pacing is deliberately slow; the feeling of reality is there.

And then he blows it at the end with a wholly unnecessary visit to Mars’ built-in planetarium and spook show, complete with crying aliens. It’s the same problem that plagued the endings of Robert Zemeckis’ Contact and James Cameron’s The Abyss. For God’s sake, when will Hollywood learn? Don’t show the mystic aliens!

But before all that, Luke Graham (Don Cheadle, Iron Man 3) heads an exploratory mission to the red planet that ends tragically, and only Graham survives. A rescue mission is deployed to save him, consisting of astropals played by Gary Sinise (sporting Maybelline MoistureLash), Tim Robbins, Jerry O’Connell and the delicious Connie Nielsen. Despite several obstacles — resulting, as expected, in the usual incredible De Palma set pieces — and even further tragedy, the team makes it to Mars. The scene in which Sinise stumbles upon a mentally unstable Cheadle in a makeshift greenhouse plays like something out of De Palma’s over-the-top Raising Cain, or some nonexistent film where the white man busts in on Bob Marley’s weed farm.

And soon this leads to the aforementioned Twin Peaks-esque trip to the “Golly Gee-Whiz” exhibit at the Mars State Fair, where all credibility is checked at the door for a laughs-aplenty sequence that clearly just should’ve been axed. But up until then, Mission is pretty damn good. It’s intelligent, well-made and looks fantastic. Too bad there’s That Goofy Ending, likely the culprit for the film’s punching-bag rep. —Rod Lott

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In a fairer world, Watchmen would be heralded as the one of (if not the) finest superhero movies ever made. Yet we (or at least I) simply must appreciate the miracle that it ever got made in the first place. Based on Alan Moore’s legendary graphic novel, the adaptation was never going to please everyone. Fans would complain about changes; the dim-witted, narrative complexity; the restless, length and pacing; the uptight, Manhattan’s big blue wang making them feel all squidgy inside.

But for the rest (an admitted minority), Watchmen is a treat, the Godfather of superhero flicks in length, density and atmosphere. Set in a world where America won Vietnam and Richard Nixon is still president, a group of outlawed heroes lives under an ongoing cold war that threatens global nuclear annihilation at any moment. Traipsing through timelines and POVs, director Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) chronicles the fall of the fascist Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the loneliness of sad-sack Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), the madness of Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), the objectification of Silk Spectres I and II (Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman, respectively) and the messianic aloofness of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a naked, 7-foot-tall CGI blue god who counts as the only true superhero (and who beat the blue CGI characters from Avatar to the punch by a good four months).

Running through all storylines is Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the maniacal heart of both iterations. A merciless dispenser of justice, Rorschach is both Batman and Joker, a psychotic vigilante unbound by moral compromise. In a movie of terrific performances, Haley is the standout (seriously, where’s his Oscar?), driving everything relentlessly forward as he investigates the death of the Comedian in the shadow of Armageddon.

Yes, there are quibbles. Gugino’s old-age makeup is atrocious. Neither Spectre is really given anything to do other than exist for the gratification of others (a problem shared with the novel). The music is too on-the-nose. The owlship sex scene does raise titters (even if it copies Moore’s work beat for beat). And yes, I miss the squid-alien monstrosity of the original finale.

Yet what remains is extraordinary (particularly in the four-hour cut, which expands much of the backstory and incorporates Moore’s comic-within-a-comic, Tales of the Black Freighter, in animated form). It’s refreshingly adult. The action is clean and vigorous. It’s morally ambiguous in a way The Dark Knight only wished it could be. There are images of absolute beauty. It’s broad and epic, yet intimate when it needs to be.

Finally, unlike many films, Watchmen gets better with each viewing. There’s a lot to catch. As much as I love The Dark Knight, the benchmark of modern superhero films, Watchmen is better. —Corey Redekop

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