Told mostly in flashback this has cop Natasha Henstridge and a crew of fellow officers (that includes Pam Grier; who's a common site in genre pictures lately) heading to a mining city on Mars (the year 2174) to pick-up deadly criminal Ice Cube (they still give him movie roles?).

Only it turns out an airbourne alien virus has possessed all the miners and under the lead of a Marilyn Manson-like baddie they become killing machines that Henstridge and "the Cube" have to fight off.

Dull starting horror/sci-fi plays more like an expensive B-movie than anything with so-so to junky acting and a script that's muddled making it a void of a film with vapid plotting and a bunch of badly staged action mayhem backed by an annoying heavy metal score.

Throw in some fakey looking effects and a really cheesy modified weather balloon moment and you have this almost unwatchable effort from John Carpenter who seems to have the Tobe Hooper curse since his last four movies have been crap.

Directed By: John Carpenter.
Written By: John Carpenter, Larry Sulkis.

Starring: Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier.

Picture Ratio: 2:35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: With lots of desert vistas and nighttime shots this turns out to be a pretty crisp looking disc; though it does get a little fuzz-laden briefly at times.

Extras: The main thing I learned from the extra features on this disc is just how ancient John Carpenter looks these days. For features this has some slim filmographies, a featurette on the films "scoring" (see John get all worked up over a heavy guitar riff!), a featurette on the effects that's not overly informative, an okay "video diary" of the production and finally a mediocre commentary track by Carpenter and Henstridge.