We saw The Martian last night, and, as popcorn movies, go, I thought it was really quite good. The theater was busy and the audience even applauded a couple times, so I’d say that it’s going to be a big hit. The story is fictional, taken from the novel of the same name (by Andy Weir) and directed by one of my favorite makers of blockbusters, Ridley Scott. While I have not liked all of Scott’s movies, some of them, notably Blade Runner, Alien, Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus, are all time favorites of mine, so I went with high hopes that Scott, as old as he is, still had the stuff to make another big one.
In case you have been hiding under the proverbial rock and have not seen a trailer, the story is about a Mars expedition in the not-too-distant future that goes bad. Matt Damon, the James Stewart of our era, plays Mark Watney, part of a team of astronauts on a Mars expedition. Unfortunately, he is blasted out of sight when a major malfunction happens on part of the installation during a storm, causing a large explosion. Thinking that Watney is dead and gone, the rest of the crew flees back to their ship and prepares for an emergency return to Earth. Only after they have left does Watney return to consciousness, dig himself out of the Martian sand, make his way back to the installation and realize that he’s really in a bad situation. He has no communication with Earth, not enough food and water to survive until the next expedition arrives four years in the future, and nobody even knows that he’s alive. His funeral has been broadcast on the media and the returning spacecraft can’t be turned around. Even if NASA knew that he was alive and got right on top of a rescue, it would still take too long. It’s obvious to Watney that he has to “science the sh*t out of this”. The first task is to communicate and let the world know that he is still alive, then to find a way to stretch a month’s worth of food into years.
This movie is a sort of Apollo13 on steroids….the situation is worse, the distance home is much greater and nobody knows that you are alive. Like Apollo 13, it’s also a movie that lends it self to that theme of all those eccentric technical experts in NASA pitching in, setting aside their differences, and finding a way to make the sort of innovation that turns copper wire and dried beans into lemonade…the great American talent for improvising in a crisis. NASA seems very dry and bureaucratic until they shift into this mindset. Then everybody is on their side. The story plays out, like most NASA missions, in the public forum. Everybody in the world soon knows about this and is rooting for Watney. If Watney gets back, everybody is a hero; if he doesn’t, NASA looks callous and inept. The Chinese government wants to get in on the rescue.
This is one of those movies that’s just made for Matt Damon. As I mentioned, as an actor, he is like the James Stewart of our era. When he plays an everyman, a nice guy who tries hard and just wants the simple things, he’s hard to beat in that role. Watney was made for Damon. The rest of the cast, notably Jessica Chasten, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean and Kate Mara, are as good as they need to be, but this isn’t that much of an actor’s film. What it IS, is a gadget and effects film. The Martian landscape seems believable, the sets and props all have that crystal-clear spacecraft look and the big scenes of lift-offs, passing space vehicles, etc, are all really done well. It is a visually excellent movie and since it’s those outer space visuals that make the story work, that spells success in my book. Dialog is dense, full of techie jargon, orbital mechanics, and space craft system talk…. a lot of that “the camiflex has to interface with the blubloggon cortex” sort of talk. I don’t know whether any of it was technically correct or just made up, but it goes past you so quick that it won’t really matter whether the math is right. Both I and the audience seemed to enjoy the movie, suspense takes you right up to the end, and the FX are excellent. If you’re looking for a right-stuff sort of adventure, this is just fine.