After the disaster that was “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” director Ridley Scott has regained his honor with “The Martian.”
Matt Damon dons a spacesuit as Mark Watney, an astronaut assisting in a mission on Mars.
In an emergency evacuation caused by a storm, Watney is blown away. When the rest of his crew members are unable to make contact with him, they assume he is dead and leave the planet one man down.
Watney survives and wakes up alone, injured and unable to contact his crew or NASA. As Watney surveys the situation he’s in, things only begin to look worse.
He’s the only human being on Mars, completely dependent on machines that produce natural resources he needs to survive, like water and oxygen. If either of them breaks, he will die of dehydration or suffocation. And even then, he has a limited food supply that will run out far before a rescue mission could be organized — which he can’t expect if he can’t contact NASA.
With these daunting odds in mind, Watney must make a decision: accept death or try to survive.
So he gets to work.
With his brains, ingenuity and sharp sense of humor, Watney builds a way to live on Mars until he can be rescued.
“The Martian” boasts an impressive cast that has you shouting every few minutes when a familiar face comes into frame. Jessica Chastain and Marvel super heroes Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara play just three of the people that accompany Damon’s character to Mars.
On Earth, NASA is being run by Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig — a true dream team.
Donald Glover continues his trend of randomly popping up in the middle of films with his role as a young astronomer. And honestly, keep it up, Hollywood.
As talented as the cast is, the bulk of this movie rests on Damon’s shoulders. “The Martian” puts itself in a difficult situation where it must, for the most part, be carried by one character.
The audience spends the majority of the film’s 141 minutes watching Watney wander around Mars by himself. Most of the dialogue is Watney talking to cameras as he narrates his experience. Though it’s one-sided, it’s executed to make the audience feel as though Watney is speaking directly to them, and Watney’s charm keeps the conversation casual and even funny as he documents blowing himself up or digging radioactive hunks of metal from the ground, which could also blow him up.
I was expecting big things from “The Martian.” Scott and his writers created a beautiful film able to deliver a global message through one person.
