The Martian

The Martian (2015)

92% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 290 reviews)

Runtime: 144 minutes

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor

From: 20th Century Fox

Today I am finishing off the reviews of the movies I saw on Saturday. I don't love it but I did enjoy it quite a bit. My Letterboxd review is below: 

This is the third movie I saw in the film marathon I experienced on Saturday. When it comes to Ridley Scott, on this site I don't have reviews up for everything I've seen from him, but he has made some great motion pictures, like Alien & Blade Runner and flicks like Black Rain are at least solid. His track record in recent years was definitely more spotty. I am saying that mainly from popular opinion and seeing Prometheus... to steal a joke, it was more like ProMEHtheus. I am not sure about that new Alien installment so this may be the last quality thing he does; as he's in his late 70's I do wonder how many more projects he has left before he retires... or something unfortunate happens. If this is the last highly rated motion picture from him, then it is a nice way to go out.

I was surprised that the plot started right away; they wasted no time in showing the calamity that resulted in Matt Damon getting stranded yet again. He is a botanist and also apparently a super-genius in general as a LOT of calamities happen to him and he always manages to figure out a way to solve it. I don't want it to sound like I am putting down the film; it's just that it's a little far-fetched, although I did appreciate the hard science aspect of it all. I've never read the book this was based on; I just heard it was a lot of hard math so it was simplified and for the general public that was a good idea.

The cast was full of familiar faces and it was nice to see them and overall they performed admirably, but it was Damon who was the most memorable. He had a lot of weight to carry as there was a long stretch where it was just him and no one else performing. It was nice to see some diversity too with the women in major roles and various ethnicities shown... the Chinese being shown in a positive light is not a surprise when it comes to showing movies worldwide. I was glad to see Chiwetel Ejiofor in an important role, as he deserves to be in more big movies like this.

What I noticed the most was the cinematography and how all the worlds shown (including the space ship) looked beautiful; the Mars scenery was especially stunning... also, the score from Harry Gregson-Williams was appropriately ethereal. Speaking of music, the disco songs you hear throughout was a wacky idea but then again there are plenty of humorous moments throughout. Now, I don't quite get why it was “Best Comedy” at the Golden Globes this year, but then again all those movie awards shows make strange or just wrong decisions every year; I won't get into last night's Academy Awards, except to say that some mistakes were made there also. I won't complain about the nominations that this film got, though, as it was well put together and it was an exciting crowd-pleasing flick. For the visuals and the score alone, I am glad this was viewed by me on the big screen.