Red Planet (2000)

  This is a terrible movie that hopefully no one will try and call an "underrated gem" at any point in the future.  It's okay.  Just let this one go.  

A crew of astronauts prepare for the first manned mission to Mars to establish it as a viable colony world.  Terraforming had begun with prior missions, where oxygen-producing algae was seeded onto the surface.  Mission leader Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss) leads a team consisting of a pilot (Benjamin Bratt), three scientists (Terrence Stamp, Tom Sizemore, and Simon Baker) and an engineer (Val Kilmer).  Almost immediately, things go horribly wrong.  Their docking ship is hit by a solar flare so Bowman evacuates the crew to the surface and stays behind to try and salvage the ship.  The men are blown far off course from the landing zone and then discover that their would-be habitat has been destroyed, leaving them with no supplies and no extra oxygen.  Also, the navigation robot prototype given to them by the United States Marine Corps accidentally flipped to Evil Mode in the crash and is actively stalking them.  And there may or may not be killer aliens.

If you asked me to define the 00s, I wouldn't be able to give you any concrete examples, but somehow this movie is a perfect encapsulation of the year 2000.  It's still bad.  Do not expect it to be in the National Library any time soon.  But the unnecessary voiceover that sounds like Screenwriting 101, the token woman and token POC (only one of each! Don't need more!), the soundtrack, and the heavy-handed but still somehow milquetoast environmental message, date it more reliably than carbon-14.  

Bowman is the most competent member of the crew and she is mostly relegated to over-comms encouragement and unattainable sex symbol by all of the dudes.  Carrie-Anne Moss deserved better.  Bratt also drew the short straw with a one-note character.  Kilmer is basically playing the grown-up version of his Real Genius character, which I didn't mind actually, but there was nothing he could do to salvage this movie.  

It's currently streaming on Tubi if you want to drunk watch it.