Movie Review: The Martian (2015)

The Martian (2015)

–

Survive until….

There is Gravity on Mars, no really, it’s exactly that.

Well okay, I’ve always had that problem with my imagination, where I mix movies together when I see actors…er…acting the same way in multiple roles. So when I see The Bourne Legacy [2012] (starring Jeremy Renner as a skilled super agent) and then Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation [2015] (starring Jeremy Renner as a skilled super agent) I can’t help but think ‘that’s the same guy’.

And so, for Matt Damon, my first thought was Interstellar (where he plays Dr. Mann) ….yeah, that’s the back-story to what he experienced being stranded on an alien planet and figuring out how to survive. Swap the red rocks and sand for blue and you have the same planet….sorta. At any rate, there is the feel of Gravity [2013] where it is one mishap and near miss after another. There is the singular (mostly) focus on one character and their thoughts being our true guide through the story.

What do you think? Is this too similar?

Matt Damon, Matt Damon. Man, we wanted to bring him home in Saving Private Ryan. We wanted him to find us a new home in Interstellar and now as the poster commits…

Saving private…Watney

Story wise, we are seeing the book written Andy Weir translated by screenwriter Drew Goddard (World War Z, Cloverfield) and directed by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, Black Hawk Down). The visuals and vistas are top notch as are all the effects. Matt Damon is engaging as astronaut/biologist Mark Watney who is mistakenly presumed dead and left behind when his team must abort their Mars mission due to a severe storm. From there, it’s a race to extend his supplies until help arrives.

There aren’t too many surprises as NASA is cast as a life-loving organization and spares no effort in getting their man home. The world population is cast as a caring mass-entity that actually cares about a single US astronaut. There are lots of live broadcasts and streaming (worldwide) moments that NASA would NEVER let happen, but hey…   There’s China (I think) that comes to the rescue which also gives us a happy world where politics is forgotten for the sake of this one man’s life. Interstellar showed us a very dark side of humanity and space exploration as a desperate option. The Martian has an optimistic angle, where space travel and colonization is dangerous, but worth doing when human life retains its value. Watch the trailer. You’ll get exactly what you expect.

CHECK ALL MOVIE REVIEWS HERE