Adam Foidart Here we go with an ultra-obscure science fiction flick. As far as I can gather, "Stranded" is a Spanish film, either dubbed or shot simultaneously in English. The film is set in the year 2020. Man is just getting ready to land on Mars for the first time. A crew of seven is getting ready to step on solid ground when disaster strikes. The landing craft crashes and is unsalvageable. The only astronaut not on Mars is forced to return to Earth to get help, a trip that will take a whopping 26 months. Meanwhile, the captain has been killed on impact and there is no way the crew can survive the wait unless they get creative. The film follows them as they explore every possibility to maintain their oxygen and water supply but it quickly becomes apparent that there simply isn't enough power to keep everyone alive for that long."Stranded" starts off pretty rough, with some awful dialog and pretty wooden performances but as the movie plays out, it gets a lot better and as a sci-fi movie, it's not too bad in the end. I can't emphasize enough how terrible the beginning of the film is. As the crew are about to land on Mars, they are being interviewed. The newscaster asks them "Why Mars? What do you expect to find there?" and the audience looks befuddled. Did they really ask the astronauts why they are going to the planet closest to Earth, and what they expect to see there? What kind of idiotic interview is this? It really doesn't help either that Danel Aser, who plays Herbert is truly awful in his role. He is given lines like "There's something we're going to start to accept: We're no longer on a mission to Mars, we're shipwrecked. We'll have to accept a great deal of suffering and discomfort. Don't worry. I'm used to facing extreme situations." And "We all know that oxygen is the most abundant element in the rocks on Mars, don't we?" It would be laugh-out-loud funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Maria Lidon as Susana Sanchez, the second in command is also giving a bad performance. Who am I kidding? Everyone starts of pretty lousy. It's a really rough start.Thankfully, the movie does get better because the premise is solid. Think about it. When you're say... stranded on an island you do have that worry about food and water (Depending on where you are) but there's always a sliver of hope that you can build a raft or catch someone's attention and get rescued. Not here. Even if all of the pieces of the crashed ship were somehow salvageable it would be impossible to construct a craft capable of bringing our unfortunate astronauts back to Earth. There's a reason people compare something difficult to rocket science. On top of that, there are two additional resources that are in short supply: air and heat. The difficulty level just got cranked up a notch. That's the danger of space travel, the fact that you are completely isolated, completely alone (to a certain extent) and in this case, literally on an alien world. The introduction and development of these ideas is where the movie really starts to kick off. There's some decent tension as you try and figure out who's going to screw up and get themselves killed, who's going to get cabin fever cooped up in that tiny ship and who is going to try and back stab the rest. I'm not necessarily saying all of these events happen, I'm just saying that they're all very real possibilities. Towards the end of the movie there are some cool ideas thrown around and some pretty good moments as the characters really reach desperation. Being totally honest though, I will admit that at times, particularly during the first half, the movie wasn't very exciting and I found my mind wandering more than once."Stranded" is not a great film, but there are some pretty good moments in it. It asks some interesting questions and it's fun to think about what you would do in the same situation as our protagonists. How do you decide who lives and who dies? At what point is there really no hope? What are the dangers of space exploration? If you're a hardcore fan of survival stories and you like science fiction (and this is science fiction because it contains technology that does not exist yet and is set in the future) it's worth a rental. At home, sitting on the couch where you can get up and get a snack while you listen in on some of the drama it's enjoyable. You'll have to forgive the truly awful introduction but hey, it's always preferable for a film to have a weak beginning than a weak ending so where it counts, it works. (Fullscreen version on DVD, October 27, 2013)

junk-monkey Stranded is a not very good attempt at a serious nuts and bolts hard SF story - ie no monsters - in which the first mission to Mars goes horribly wrong. Unable to lift off again, and with limited resources to hand, the crew do the maths and realise only two of them stand a chance of surviving till any possible rescue mission could get to them. This is a standard scenario from a thousand magazine short stories over the years. A scenario pits human vulnerability and ingenuity against the cold impassivity of the laws of physics. I have never come across this story played out so flatly and dully as here.After the opening sequence, when the ship crashes in a series of tiny scenes and brief single shots interspersed with great slugs of black - a editing technique that was supposed to induce tension and confusion but just made me wonder if my DVD payer was having trouble playing the disc - we are introduced to the members of the crew coming to terms with the reality of their new situation. After a few laughable bad attempts at working out how to survive - the most logical and sensible thing they do is dismantle the acceleration couches and take them outside because they won't need them any more - three of them decide to walk to their deaths (taking as much oxygen as they can with them!?) and leave the doctor and the engineer to wait for rescue.After an eternity of watching three people walking around in space suits with an orange filter on the camera - on Mars everything is red - the survivors find the remnants of an ancient civilisation, a mysterious ancient oasis of air, water and lichen, "from which we will be able to extract protein". The end.As stories go it's not the worst I've ever seen; it successfully avoids falling into any number of low budget SF traps and the hardware looks good but, dear god, the script is awful! At no point in this film did any of the characters look or sound like the top-notch technician scientists they were supposed to be. The first people to set foot on Mars? These people would have been the elite, the best and most capable astronauts the world have ever seen. What arrives on screen are barely sketched-in outlines of characters with no depth or consistency. Just to give one example: the doctor is supposed to be a Christian. She tells us that it is against her religion to commit suicide, she insists, against opposition from her fellow crew-members that the dead captain is buried in the "Christian manner" yet, when she gets her way and the poor stiff is dragged outside for the funeral, she doesn't say anything religious at his graveside at all, preferring instead to recite (from memory!) a long extract from Robert Falcon Scott's diary (written shortly before his death during his ill-fated expedition to Antarctica). This clumsily sets up the "'Tis a far far better thing," type noble sacrifice that is to follow but does little to create a believable character.There are token nods towards making some hard science - during an angry exchange one character suggests they make power by building a windmill, the engineer says the wind is too thin - end of discussion. Where's the detail? I'm not saying they should have stopped the movie and had a lecture about the relative densities of the atmospheres of Earth and Mars but SF movie audiences are well used to sitting through screeds of nonsensical Techno-babble - 'Captain, if we bypass the tachyon emissions through the warp core shielding this may have the effect of reversing the cloaking device's polarity!' - why not have some real science for a change? Bad script. And some really odd direction too.Better than Aurora: (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128059) but makes Mission to Mars (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/) look like a towering work of genius.

pahaake Don't listen the haters. Although I think Gallo is a terrible actor and about as annoying as Gilbert Godfried (sp?) this is actually a very good film.I'm guessing that some voices were dubbed and some not, hard to tell from the version I caught on Showtime. Without spoiling too much, this movie pretty much hits it all - the life / death choice dilemma, aliens, life on other planets, some pretty great sci-fi mixed with a decent drama.Don't let any of the negatives put you off - and don't stop watching it because the start is slow. Once it picks up you'll be very glad you kept watching.

kevin-1800 Stranded is by far one of the five worst films i've seen. But, it's that rare film animal that is so bad it must be seen to be believed. enjoy at your own risk. The English version appears to have been overdubbed, which only adds to the fun, creating a pseudo-kung-fu-sci-fi sub-genre. Vincent Gallo plays, of course, the tough guy American. He, and his beard, are unbearable. Somehow the producers must have gotten their hands on a first-rate spaceship set from another film, because 95% takes place inside this tiny capsule. The claustrophobia of the capsule mirrors the fact that your intelligence is dwindling the longer you watch the film. The best part about Stranded, however, are the 'weightless scenes.' I can see the director yelling 'Walk slowly! Wave your arms! Pretend like you're weightless!' into his megaphone. Watch Stranded, and you will really really appreciate 'Speed II.'