REVIEW; A 'MISSION' GOING NOWHERE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Stanley Kubrick is still dead, and not even Brian De Palma, the high priest of cinematic Frankenstein jobs, can resurrect the master's touch in ``Mission to Mars.'' De Palma - who has made more than his share of trite scripts into at-least-watchable movies by, shall we say, creatively borrowing from the best visual stylists in film history - proves incapable of working up compositional enthusiasm for the most ``2001''-ish scenes in this drab mission. You can't really blame him, but it's impossible not to have expected something, anything, more as well.

Nothing here to match the director's great Hitchcock-inspired moments or his hypnotic ``Untouchables'' restaging of Eisenstein's Odessa Steps massacre. Heck, ``Mission: Impossible'' had better ``Space Odyssey'' bits than ``Mars'' does. And the earlier movie's notoriously incoherent script was a lot more fun than this one's multiwriter mishmash of numbing expositional dialogue, `50s-vintage space opera and New Age sci-fi spirituality.

An ensemble of usually fine actors can't bring much conviction to the alternately underwhelming and hokey proceedings, either. Set some 20 years in the future, the film opens, unengagingly as humanly possible, at a backyard barbecue. A group of best-buddy astronauts and their families are there to say goodbye to the comrades heading off to a red planet research station.

Important Character Information divulged here. Jim (Gary Sinise), was to have led the mission with his wife, Maggie (``NYPD Blue's'' Kim Delaney, seen in videoloop flashbacks), but she got sick and died, and he still feels bad about that. Fortunately, another astro-couple, Woody (Tim Robbins) and Terri (Connie Nielsen), are healthy, since they really love each other. And Luke (Don Cheadle) also has a happy marriage and an adorable young son.

These great folks live in a world where cars don't use gasoline anymore and beer comes in cartons. After some 10 minutes of this zydeco-scored triviality, you'll be ready to go anywhere the least bit more interesting.

Which Mars marginally proves to be. A year or so later, Luke and his small command of expendables discover something that shouldn't be on the supposedly uninhabited, oppressively burnt sienna rock. Then something terrible happens and communications are severed. It takes a few months, but Jim, Woody, Terri and unfunny comedy relief guy Phil (Jerry O'Connell) head out on a rescue mission as soon as they can.

This trip is the film's best segment. It presents a kind of workaday view of the details and dangers of deep space travel, and gives De Palma and his visual team, which includes his regular cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, opportunities to play around with zero-gravity gags and loop-the-loop camera tricks. Not a single scene bears the subtle dread or alienating disorientation of whichever ``2001'' moment it resembles (the computer, which is no threat here, even has a soothingly effete, HAL- sounding voice), but at least they're all staged pretty well.

The climactic events on Mars are not as adroitly done. De Palma gives up on the bad Kubrick riffs and goes for ``Close Encounters''-era Spielberg at this point, and it's certainly no improvement. Fundamentally a gleeful manipulator as an artist and a cynic about the human condition, De Palma is just not tempermentally attuned to either the cool awesomeness of Kubrick's vision or Spielberg's warm sense of wonder.

Of course, no film should try to incorporate both of those tones, especially when employing dialogue and dramaturgy of ``Lost in Space'' quality. ``Mission to Mars''' was as doomed as JPL's last polar lander from the start, no matter who was at the helm.

The facts

--The film: ``Mission to Mars'' (PG; violence, language).

--The stars: Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by Jim and John Thomas, Graham Yost and Lowell Cannon. Produced by Tom Jacobson. Released by Touchstone Pictures.

--Running time: One hour, 53 minutes.

--Playing: Citywide.

--Our rating: One and one half stars.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo: Astronaut Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) floats around the Mars Recovery mission spacecraft in ``Mission to Mars.''