Fans of the self-published debut novel will not be disappointed by Ridley Scott’s (Alien, Gladiator) adaptation of Andy Weir’s The Martian. This is a good movie that should be viewed in 3D on the largest screen that you can see it on. While it doesn’t come close to delivering the same experience as Gravity or even Interstellar, it is one of the rare movies that truly benefits by being seen in 3D. Before I get into this review, I want to mention that I will try to write it from the standpoint of someone who has not read the fictional novel as best as I can, as I know this is something that most people have not read. With that said, I will refer to the novel. I will also give some spoilers, but I will provide notice before diving into any of these. If you read around the paragraphs marked spoilers, you will be okay with reading this review before seeing this movie. The Martian is a very good movie, but it is not great. I was not disappointed by it. If I hadn’t read the novel, I think that maybe the trailers and the hype would have left me wanting more. This movie currently sits as my #6 movie of 2015, but I think there is less than a 1% chance it will finish in my end-of-year top 10. It didn’t have the emotional impact Gravity had, nor does it have the What did I miss? I need to watch this movie again type of feeling Interstellar had. Also, as I will mention, something was missing overall from the performances especially considering that Scott landed the cast of the year. While I will heavily critique this movie, I again want to say that I really liked the movie. It was a very good adaptation of the book. It held my interest throughout its 2 hour and 14-minute time frame.
So the rest of this review has mostly spoilers, as you’ll see in this next paragraph. Before getting to that, I want to mention that this movie is rated PG-13. I think it could have been rated PG. I think some kids younger than 13 might like it (especially if they are into science). Other groups of kids under 13 might feel that it is boring. I don’t think many adults will find this movie boring even though it is by no means an action movie. It’s a fun adventure movie that will offer things you haven’t seen on the big screen before. It might be worth seeing the film just for the cinematography alone. In any case, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon – Good Will Hunting, Promised Land) is left for dead after he gets hit by debris while trying to navigate through a storm on a space exploration trip on Mars. The other five crew members are sure he is dead and are forced to leave before recovering his body because their evacuation ship is on the verge of tipping over. Well, it turns out he survived and now is left Mars by himself with enough resources, if everything goes right, to survive for a month while a potential rescue trip wouldn’t happen for 400 days. That’s the story. Here are the spoilers.
***Start of Spoilers***
Let’s talk about the book, and let’s talk about the acting. Particularly let’s talk about Damon. I realize that Scott took an Apollo 13 approach where everything will be okay in the end. A significant difference between Apollo 13 and The Martian is that Apollo 13 is based on a true story. So if you knew anything about Apollo 13, you know all will end up just fine. You don’t necessarily know that about The Martian going in, but it doesn’t take forever to realize that this is how it will turn it out. The Martian is a feel-good movie…much more than the book is. While the book presents dire situation after dire situation that Mark is able to figure out and get out of, the movie only shows a fraction of those. The book also presents Mark with more situations of hopelessness than the film does. The guy is stranded on Mars, and there are dozens of ways that could kill him years before there is any attempt to be rescued, yet depression never sets in? That’s hard for me to believe. I’ve been around some super positive people who have been wiped out by situations far less extreme than this. Perhaps I wanted this to be a bit more of a drama than it really was. However, I did read the book. So I knew what I was getting into more than someone who didn’t read the book. I could see some people basing their decision solely on the trailer and the positive scores by the critics to be disappointed because there was no real drama. There was no real human emotion. You never really felt like he wasn’t going to make it. You never thought that the crew, especially Commander Lewis, was distraught because they left Mark behind. I think Ridley Scott knew he couldn’t include everything and decided to leave the human element of despair out of the equation. That’s perfectly fan. I don’t think it would have been what I expected had I not read the back. The same can be said about Lewis’s disco music. The movie does not explain why he listens to that so much. Still, in the book, it is clearly stated over and over that the only entertainment he had for all of that time was her music and reruns of Three’s Company (interestingly enough…I believe Mark was watching an episode of Taxi early on in the film and I don’t recall that being a show that was part of what he had to choose from).
***End of Spoilers***
Plot 10/10 (Original and engrossing. I love original and engaging)
Character Development 7/10 (could of…should have been better…this was a feel-good movie. Unlike the book, I never felt like Damon’s character was really depressed, and I also didn’t feel like Chastain’s character was rattled with the guilt that her character was in the book)
Character Chemistry 7.5/10 (the best performances were the ones held on earth where are all of the political and risk management decisions were being made. Wiig was wasted. She should never have been in this movie, but the dynamics between Daniels, Bean, and Ejiofor were excellent. Damon alone on the screen for extended periods wasn’t something he was quite ready for at this point in his career)
Acting 7.5/10 (considering the powerhouses in this movie, I was expecting a little bit more…the performances as a whole were flat. Damon was only slightly above average. Chastain was excellent as Captain Lewis, but the other five members of her crew were pretty flat overall. Daniels, Bean, and Ejiofor delivered A performances.
Screenplay 8.5/10 (a very good adaptation of the book…there were a couple of parts that were left out that I felt could have been included…especially the elements that made you empathize a little bit more with the lead characters…especially Damon’s character)
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 9/10 (I’m tempted to give this a higher score, but I saw what was done with Gravity and Interstellar, and these two movies felt leaps and bounds ahead of The Martian in this category even it was cool to see what the Mars surface might look like)
Sound 10/10 (Harry Gregson-Williams wrote an excellent score…interspersed skillfully with Commander Lewis’s disco fetish)
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 8/10 (I like a good space exploration movie. We will be on Mars one day. I don’t know if it’ll be in my lifetime. It would be cool if it is. But it will happen)
88%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie