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Sorry, this movie sucks

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Belgium has produced a number of delightful comedies but "News from the planet Mars" sure as hell doesn't fall in this category : it is a deeply unfunny movie full of half-baked ideas, shallow concepts, WTF dialogue and unpleasant characters. Watching the movie is very much like sitting in the waiting room at the dentist's, if the dentist were located somewhere in the murkier corners of Purgatory.Pretty despicable : the ease with which cruelty towards dogs is treated. Throwing a dog from a bridge is funny because it's a little yapping dog and everybody knows that little yapping dogs deserve everything humans can think of in the way of torture and killing. Once I used to have a colleague (now many years dead, poor soul) who took a dim view of humanity and who was in the habit of saying : "If they ever develop a rocket capable of traveling to Mars, I'll be one of the first passengers". I understood what she meant and after seeing the movie I understand it even better.

A simple story about an average nice and decent guy who is victimized by everybody around him (the meek not so blessed). Excellent acting by the whole cast and good rhythm, with a comedic tone which borders on but does not turn into outright farce. But against this entertaining backdrop there are some serious themes, such as cruelty to animals, vegetarianism and the recruitment of youngsters for extremist causes. Also, more generally, the changing values, aspirations and fears over three generations. The older generation represented by imaginary dialogue between the protagonist and his dead parents. Imaginary but somehow realistic. How many of us have imagined such dialogue? (I have).I liked less the unnecessarily cruel scene where he throws the little dog into the river. Perhaps a tragic comment that at his breaking point he takes it out on the most innocent and defenseless of his "aggressors". There is also a Hollywood-esque climax complete with a narrowly missed explosion. But overall it ends on a (moderately) hopeful note.

It's a comedy that settles for smiles, mostly wry ones. A story of a would be loser (once again - I don't believe there's such a thing, but people do use the term). Kind sensitive and unable to say no for real. Everybody around him knows it, and they all take advantage of it. Pushing his life into a surreal spin, in which reality itself loses touch with reality.It takes some very good acting, a carefully balanced plot - it could easily slip into an all out farce, and that, obviously, wasn't the intention of Dominik Moll - the director and of Gilles Marchand who helped him with the script. The line between sanity and common sense is also being blurred, in the best way. I think this kind of dual balance is best kept in French comedies. There are similar stories being made elsewhere - they end up over the fine lines that this film succeeds not to cross. It does makes you think, what's a loser, is it so bad being one. Who's insane who isn't and who lives in a bigger cage.