Dir: Ridley Scott
The Martian is a film that starts with a group of 6 astronauts led by Captain Lewis (Jessica Chastain), who seem to have been placed on Mars for exploratory reasons, but then suddenly, a necessarily narrative in the form of an unsuspecting sci-fi storm, occurs. In the midst of this storm, the central character Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is hit by flying debris and is thought to be dead by his fellow astronauts who have to abandon Mars due their own lives being threatened by the planet's unforgiving atmosphere.
Of course though and unbeknownst to the rest of the fleeing crew, Watney is not dead, but is however in some physical discomfort. After realising his dire situation of being alone on a desolate planet with limited resources and no hope, he attempts to contact NASA and mission control to confirm he's alive. Watney then starts the daunting task of, in his own words, "NOT TO DIE!"
After receiving Watney's messages of help, mission control then have to figure out a way of helping Watney, meanwhile Watney himself has to fight the elements and somehow grow three years of food on a planet that probably hasn't had anything remorsefully similar to food grow on it for more than three billion years... As it states in the film though, luckily Watney is a botanist. He then finds a bag of potatoes and creates fertiliser with waste and excretions from the mission camp's toilet. So in a nutshell, with his skills as a botanist and a bit of thinking outside the box, Watney grows potatoes with human poo. His only source of entertainment and means of sanity is videos of Happy Days (which you think would turn you bonkers) and captain Lewis's bygone 1970's disco music.
What makes "The Martian" great and possibly one of Ridley Scott's best work for decades is how well written it is, courtesy of The Martian's brilliant screenplay writer, Drew Goddard and Andy Weir's book of which the film is based. Ridley Scott's vision for world building is second to none, but he struggles with script writing, which can be seen with his recent stodgy work "Exodus: Gods of Kings" (2014) or even the lackadaisical "Prometheus" (2012). However, "The Martian" breathes new life into Scott's prowess and silences his critics through its main character Mark Watney, a character who, we as the audience genuinely care about and can relate to. Matt Damon's character is charming, funny and incredibly vigilant. Watney's movements and daily skirmishes with his only nemesis, the planet's harsh terrain, make "The Martian" an edge-of-seat watch because danger could strike at any moment.
Another point that needs to highlighted is the story thankfully doesn't go too far with its pop-science elements. Compare this with "Interstellar" (2014), which although was an incredible blockbusting masterpiece, was in fact too technical in its story line, which became slightly confusing and a slight headache for the non-academics (myself admittedly being one of these people). There is one moment within "The Martian" where Mark Watney has to create water of which he successfully does via a science experiment that has well placed touches of humour.
Ridley Scott's decision to not 'over do the science' was a good one because the plot is just credible enough for all audiences especially younger viewers who hopefully will come away from "The Martian" with a rejuvenated interest in science and astronomy. An interesting addition to The Martian's recent release is even the team behind The Martian's public relations could not have predicted the film coming out around the same time as all these seemingly well-timed real life stories about there being water on Mars! It genuinely is a PR's dream come true!
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| A 2015 image of Mars's surface |
"The Martian" really is a film with a great tale of defeating the universe with duct tape. The film's great D.I.Y. humour is added by its retro-pop sound through Jessica Chastain's archaic disco music and The Fonz references, which gives a paradoxical feel to The Martian's futuristic themes, a notion that echos "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014). There was even time to use David Bowie's classic Starman from the aptly named album, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars".
Something's got to change to make science cool to the mainstream and this is a tremendous start. Amazingly out of this world.
Rating 8.5/10
