The Martian

Score:  **** out of ***** (B+)

Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, et. al.
Running time:  141 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  The Martian is a crowd-pleasing blockbuster adaptation of the best-selling space adventure novel.  Helmed by titan filmmaker Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon and a raft of others, they went all out on this one and cranked out a great piece of entertainment.  Apollo 13-like problem solving, an ample sense of humor and the charisma of the stars largely overcome its long running time and lack of depth.  Still, a very fun time for all ages and stages; well recommended.


Colonizing another world has long been a dream of mankind, and at the beginning of The Martian, that is just what Watney (Damon), Lewis (Chastain), Martinez (Pena) and the rest of a NASA team are doing on the red planet.  Their month-long mission is cut short, though, when a storm unexpectedly blows through their camp - and forces them to abandon Watney, who is thought dead.  As Lewis, Martinez and the others head home in the Hermes, a tech at NASA spots a tiny anomaly which quickly becomes confirmed as Watney - who was pronounced dead just weeks earlier.  The excitement of the news settles into an all-out effort to figure out how to keep him alive:  the next mission to Mars is not supposed to arrive for another four years.

Watney proves a resilient adventurer, figuring out essentials for his survival, from growing food to contacting NASA on Earth.  But his individual efforts will only buy him time.  As things inevitably go wrong, tough decisions must be made about how much NASA can - and should - risk to save the life of one brave man.

The Martian is packed with A-list stars and allows most of them to shine, if briefly.  Matt Damon plays astronaut survivor Watney, and he proves to be well-suited to the role.  Damon capably displays his character's determination and versatile competence, at a Hollywood-heightened level at that (more on this later).  He also provides an effective, wry sense of humor, mostly coming from the grimness of his situation, but generally keeps his plight sympathetic and not overwhelmed by victimization.  Chastain and Pena get the biggest roles as Hermes crew members; each is familiar and capable in her/his primary role as struggling, moral leader and comic relief, respectively.  Back on Earth are Jeff Daniels as the director of NASA, and leaders beneath him including Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, and Sean Bean.  Each falls into somewhat cliched roles - Daniels as the leader who messes up and needs redemption, Bean as his moral foil, Wiig as the not-getting-it bureaucrat and Ejiofor as the one trying to balance everyone else out.  They all shine in spots (particularly Ejiofor) and are dragged down in others.  Plenty of other roles remain, though the last I will point out is Donald Glover as a scene-stealing, hilarious NASA nerd.

Based on a self-published ebook that became a best-selling smash hit, The Martian is made to be a traditional, crowd-pleasing, ultimately triumphant adventure.  To be a bit more specific, it's like Apollo 13 but on all the steroids taken by Bonds, McGwire and Sosa put together.  The primary draw in the film is that element taken from the Hanks classic (among others), in figuring out how to overcome seemingly-impossible technical challenges (it's a lot more entertaining than I make that seem).  Particularly for the first half of the film or so, this does indeed work very well, particularly with Damon's running commentary and spiced with plenty of humor.  The humor itself is the next most potent ingredient - while it doesn't always hit the mark, it is used consistently and creates a lighter tone than there might otherwise be.  Other than a tough to watch self-operation near the beginning (I myself looked away), it's pretty sanitized and overall family friendly - this is an important consideration going into it.  This may not be to some people's taste, but at least the filmmakers do a good job of keeping this tone consistent through the film.  On a final note about the better parts of the film, the effects are high-quality, but fortunately they don't overwhelm the story or characters.

While there's plenty to like about The Martian, it's not perfect.  Although I mentioned the tone is appropriate and consistent, it also creates a superficiality to the proceedings - it's hard to truly connect with the characters, even (especially?) Watney.  This is not helped by the fact that the movie is just too long; an even two hours would have been fine and effectively trimmed the fat.  The excitement and intrigue of Watney's improvisations lose steam, and there isn't enough beneath it to transition to.  Finally, all of this gets played out by fairly cliched characters - even if they are played by familiar, capable and entertaining actors.

***

The Martian is rock-solid, at times excellent entertainment, that should appeal to about as broad an audience as a movie possibly can.  If anything, my "B+" score may be slightly underrating it - the wealth of excellent movies released so far this year has perhaps skewed my ratings.  Again, as pure entertainment it succeeds greatly - the things that it does, it does well.  Its faults are largely a result of the "limitations" of that form - and are things that probably won't bother less-frequent moviegoers much.  To be honest, there isn't much I feel particularly strongly gushing about or nitpicking against in the film.  As a final note on this film, then, I hope that it might stir renewed interest in science and exploration in society in general.  It's a good film - go see it!

A brief check-in about the blog itself: this is my second consecutive review after a long hiatus, and my hope is to keep them coming for a pretty good stretch now.  Look for my review of Spielberg and Hanks' Bridge of Spies next week, and more to come - after all, in the last two months of the year we still have the last Hunger Games film, the newest James Bond, AND Star Wars!  Can't wait.




"The Martian film poster" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Martian_film_poster.jpg#/media/File:The_Martian_film_poster.jpg