Now that voyages to Mars seem likely in the next generation or so, films about the red planet are moving beyond the "John Carter" (2012) space-opera stage. But for every reality-based "The Martian," there is still a "Terraformars," Takashi Miike's latest extreme entertainment.
The original "Terra Formars" manga has sold more than 14 million copies in paperback editions since it first appeared in 2011. This makes for a lot of fans to please — and Miike and his collaborators have done their darnedest to satisfy them by stuffing the film with characters, back stories and pseudo-scientific explanations from the source material. If the result feels soap-operatic and static to non-fans, so be it.
But Miike being Miike, there is also plenty of action executed with black comic flair and full-frontal violence. There is also much repetition, with the film's scary critters attacking in similar ways and in similar swarms. Were their makers economizing on the CGI?