Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, and Chiwetel Ejiofor
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Screenplay by: Drew Goddard
Based on the novel by Andy Weir
From Saving Private Ryan, to Interstellar, and now The Martian, the world has spent millions of dollars trying to bring back Matt Damon.
There's been a massive dust storm on Mars at the site of the Ares 3 mission. The astronauts commanded by Captain Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) are forced to abort the mission and return to Earth. On the way back to the shuttle to leave the Martian surface, Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is hit by debris. Believed to be killed by the debris, the crew leaves without him. With no way to contact NASA, it's up to Watney to figure out how he will survive until the next mission arrives on Mars in four years. Well, maybe NASA will figure out a way to rescue him once they find out he's actually alive.
The Martian has an incredibly simple storyline on the surface. Man gets stranded; people try to rescue him. It is literally as simple as that. What makes the story so complex is the difficulty Watney has trying to simply make it through one day on Mars. The Hab, where the crew is housed during the mission, is not meant to last four years, and he needs it to. Watney's specialty is botany, so he is able to figure out how to grow food on a planet where literally nothing can grow. The film explains exactly how he does it and it is not pretty. It's quite gross and a lot of the stuff he has to do in order to survive is actually pretty gross. But hey, it keeps him alive, so it's worth it to him.
Back on Earth, Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), the director of NASA is dealing with the news of Watney's "death" along with the crew, everyone else at NASA, and the rest of the world. The film focuses not only on Watney and his struggle to survive alone on Mars, but it focuses also on the effort by not just NASA to bring him home. This is a story about survival on one hand, but also rescue on the other hand.
Normally, a story like this would involve a sailor out to sea and his/her sinking ship. It's a common storyline and one that's far more tangible to people. I doubt that very many people will get stranded on another planet in our lifetimes because it's unlikely we will even get to another planet in our lifetimes. Most of these survival/rescue stories take place out to sea simply because they are more realistic. The Martian takes this seemingly unrealistic story and makes it incredibly tangible. It deals with the problems of survival on Watney's part, but it also deals with the struggle to find money for a rescue operation, the struggle of whether or not to inform the crew, and of course, the struggle to even begin to figure out how the heck he is going to get off of Mars should he survive so long. That is what makes this an original story. Ridley Scott takes audiences through every stage of the rescue process.
The film takes place in what looks to be 15-20 years from now; at a time when it is more likely we will have the funding and the experience with getting people to Mars more easily than we can in 2015. That also helps make the story a little more tangible. Yet at the same time it's what takes away the realistic quality the film has. I wonder what it would be like if we were somehow miraculously able to send people to Mars and see what would happen if they were stranded there this year. It might be a totally different story. Therefore, this film can't truly be taken realistically because the film assumes that the technology will exist to allow a stranded astronaut to survive should he/she have all the right materials handy.
One thing the book does better than the film is show the cooperation between NASA and the Chinese space agency, who just so happens to have a booster rocket that NASA needs for one of the potential rescue missions (any more explanation would be a spoiler). It also explains the processes for Watney's survival better, and sometimes, in more details than a reader might want. Fortunately, the film visualizes most of these survival tactics better. Also, Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is actually named Venkat Kapoor in the book.
Overall, this is a truly epic film; one that will have you talking long after you leave the theater. After the failure of a movie that was Exodus: Gods and Kings last year, Ridley Scott has done it again! He directs this film brilliantly, creating for a truly suspenseful film that will keep your attention throughout its duration.
I give The Martian an A-.
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