Lets face it, carpenter lost the touch somewhere along the line. I mean, Im as big a fan of his good work (Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, The Thing, Village of the Damned, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from NY, Vampires) as anyone. All those films got good to great actors, great scripts and are fresh in direction and keeping the suspense. Ghosts of Mars on the other hand cannot be directed by the same guy, its just not possible. The cast is horrendous, I have seen better acting in porn. The direction is slow, inefficient and has dozens of cardinal mistakes and the cutting is equally sad. The actors move like actors and not professional cops, the streewise attitudes are sooo bad and the fighting is worse than my grandmas. Even the makeup sucks, the bodyparts look just like what they are, plastic. Its supposed to be 2179 or something, but they use 70's walkie talkies and "have to go fetch" each other all the time instead of having efficient comms. It just ruins ALL of the movie. Its not even B, its C or even worse.<br /><br />I was actually squirming while watchin it repeating "no no no"... And finally just had to end its misery after the first hour. I just couldn't stand it. It just couldn't keep my interest up.<br /><br />Me and my friends would have made a more interesting and compelling movie with a handcam in a week.<br /><br />Carpenter must have gone senile, because his movies have traditionally been some of the best around. So dont pick this one up, go get one of his good works instead (like one of the above mentioned). And he actually made good movies pretty recent. But Ghosts of Mars only value would be to show to aspiring film makes as an example of all the mistakes you do not want to make in shooting a movie.