Time to dust off those critical thinking caps, mes amis. Film criticism isn’t just for October anymore. Now it’s for some other times as well, such as shortly after I have watched this specific French film. Zut alors!

Mars Express (2023):

The Plot: In the 23rd century, private eye Aline Ruby (Léa Drucker) and her android partner Carlos (Daniel Njo Lobé) find more than they bargained for when they take on a routine missing persons case. Their investigation uncovers a murderous conspiracy with startling ramifications for human-robot relations on Mars, Earth, and beyond.

Mars Express is an animated film from French studio Everybody On Deck Productions. Directed and co-written by alums from popular French anime Lastman–Jérémie Périn and Laurent Sarfati, respectively–the film is a sleek mix of science fiction and neo-noir. It’s briskly paced and has style to spare, but those strengths ultimately overwhelm the compelling characters and heady concepts it introduces in the first half.

If you’ve seen a few science fiction neo-noirs in your time, as I have, the way the plot unfolds will not be terribly surprising. Mars Express is playing in the same sandbox as films like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, with a few added detective clichés thrown in for good measure (between the two gumshoe protagonists, we’ve got “recovering alcoholic”, “bitterly divorced father with no child visitation rights”, and double “traumatized vet” makes Bingo). The questions about AI personhood raised during the investigation, relevant though they may seem at the moment (we aren’t there yet, AI is still just a plagiarism machine), have been both posed and answered better elsewhere. The assumptions you make about the detectives’ powerful boss with business ties to the AI industry will probably be correct, as will any guesses about the rebel hackers who “jailbreak” robots.

That having been said, it’s not originality that keeps bringing me back to these stories. I don’t need to be surprised by every twist and turn, or discover a new type of person every time I watch a movie. Are the characters interesting? Does the work have a consistent vision? Is there substance beneath the plot machinations? Fortunately for me and anyone reading this review about to watch Mars Express, it mostly succeeds at checking those boxes.

Mars Express excels at worldbuilding, delivering exposition matter-of-factly and efficiently. It reminds me of Robert Heinlein’s writing. Rather than have a character turn to an audience surrogate and say “As you know well, AI robots have been around since the year 2XXX, and this is how they fit into our daily lives…”, the film enriches our understanding of this future society with offhand lines and visual cues. People who exist in the world do not constantly feel the need to comment upon its workings, but it’s still refreshing when a sci-fi movie doesn’t fall into that trap.

The film is equally adept at revealing backstories. Characters drop personal details in conversations naturally, often not even as the focus of a scene. It’s partially a benefit of drawing from familiar archetypes, but it’s also just tight screenwriting. Périn and Safarti adroitly fill out their characters with small factoids and the associated implications of each new piece of information. They trust the audience to pay attention.

Mars Express also benefits from a clean animation style. As someone who isn’t a huge anime guy I found the visuals somewhat refreshing. The lines and blocking are clear. Mars of the future actually seems like a place people might want to live, even with its seedy underbelly and tech glitches. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the aesthetic realistic, but even with the physics-defying robot action the world feels relatively grounded.

Particularly effective are the closeups of Aline’s face, focusing on tired eyes and guarded expressions. The attention paid to body language adds shading when the film can’t afford the time to sit with the character outside of the plot. It’s the little moments that make her a protagonist worth following, more than the cool outfits and fight scenes.

Where the film falters for me is the ending. The plot resolves and nobody acts out of character–small mercies–but the former takes center stage in a way that short changes the latter. It’s not a problem unique to mysteries or science fiction, although both genres do seem to lend themselves to plot-heavy resolutions. Without spoiling too much, Mars Express reaches for profundity it doesn’t quite earn. It either needs an extra half hour to flesh out its ideas and spend more time with the protagonists as they reach the end of their journey, or it should have a smaller scope. Even in sci-fi, not every sinister conspiracy must completely alter the fate of the world.

Mars Express may not entirely stick the landing, but it’s an engaging, well-paced thriller with solid character work and a pretty bangin’ soundtrack. At 89 minutes long, it’s not a bad way to spend an evening. If any of our 12 dedicated readers end up checking it out, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Later days.

Note: I rented this movie on Amazon Prime for $5.99. I’d recommend watching it in the original French with English subtitles, but the rental also had the English dub track if you’re not worried about horribly disappointing me.