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THE MARTIAN
Director Ridley Scott, a proven commodity in the science fiction and action adventure genres, has taken elements of all of his strongest work and come up with his masterpiece, a 2015 epic called The Martian, an epic adventure upon which Scott employs some very human faces.
The film introduces us to a space mission on Mars that is disrupted by some sort of meteor storm during which one of the crew, Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets struck by a large piece of debris and is assumed dead. The rest of the crew (Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie) have no choice but to abort the mission and leave Mark's body on Mars. It is almost immediately revealed that Mark is alive and we are distressed as we watch Mark assess his situation, which includes how long it will take him to be rescued, how much food and water he has for survival and how he can cultivate more.
What initially appears to be an outer space re-thinking of Cast Away adds a couple of additional layers to the story that this reviewer did not see coming at all. First we have all those lovely folks at NASA, who initially treat Mark's "death" as taking one for the team and we hate that it's going to be left at that. But in a refreshing change of pace for a story like this, NASA learns early on that Mark is alive and want to do what they can to rescue him, but they also want to do it without it turning into a public relations nightmare. An additional layer to the story materializes as Mark's crew is initially kept in the dark about his being alive which NASA initially justifies by saying that they need to concentrate on their own mission to get home and not be clouded with guilt about Mark.
Ridley Scott's overly detailed approach to this edgy and compelling sci-fi adventure includes complete reverence to Drew Goddard's complex screenplay, rich with enough techno-babble to cross the viewer's eyes, but it explains what needs to be explained and through mere story structure, we understand the rest of what is going on, but what Goddard's screenplay does most effectively is present a brave, intelligent, but flawed central character who keeps his head in an impossible situation. We watch as he calmly assesses his situation and is always realistic about it...the man doesn't want to die and never gives up, but is completely realistic about the possibility. The complexity of Mark's situation makes for such compelling viewing because there is nothing predictable here...Scott and company make sure that there is nothing foregone about the conclusion of this story, having us on the edge of our seats as long as he wants. If I had one quibble about the screenplay, I had a little trouble swallowing the solution to sending Mark supplies came from some techno-geek (Donald Glover) who didn't even work at NASA.
Scott gets a real movie star performance from Matt Damon that earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Chastain and Pena provide solid support as do Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Eijefor, and Kristen Wiig as NASA personnel. Scott's attention to production is first rate, with Oscar nominated work in sound editing, sound mixing, production design, and visual effects. An epic adventure rich with human emotion and a central character you can't help but fall in love with.
Director Ridley Scott, a proven commodity in the science fiction and action adventure genres, has taken elements of all of his strongest work and come up with his masterpiece, a 2015 epic called The Martian, an epic adventure upon which Scott employs some very human faces.
The film introduces us to a space mission on Mars that is disrupted by some sort of meteor storm during which one of the crew, Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets struck by a large piece of debris and is assumed dead. The rest of the crew (Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie) have no choice but to abort the mission and leave Mark's body on Mars. It is almost immediately revealed that Mark is alive and we are distressed as we watch Mark assess his situation, which includes how long it will take him to be rescued, how much food and water he has for survival and how he can cultivate more.
What initially appears to be an outer space re-thinking of Cast Away adds a couple of additional layers to the story that this reviewer did not see coming at all. First we have all those lovely folks at NASA, who initially treat Mark's "death" as taking one for the team and we hate that it's going to be left at that. But in a refreshing change of pace for a story like this, NASA learns early on that Mark is alive and want to do what they can to rescue him, but they also want to do it without it turning into a public relations nightmare. An additional layer to the story materializes as Mark's crew is initially kept in the dark about his being alive which NASA initially justifies by saying that they need to concentrate on their own mission to get home and not be clouded with guilt about Mark.
Ridley Scott's overly detailed approach to this edgy and compelling sci-fi adventure includes complete reverence to Drew Goddard's complex screenplay, rich with enough techno-babble to cross the viewer's eyes, but it explains what needs to be explained and through mere story structure, we understand the rest of what is going on, but what Goddard's screenplay does most effectively is present a brave, intelligent, but flawed central character who keeps his head in an impossible situation. We watch as he calmly assesses his situation and is always realistic about it...the man doesn't want to die and never gives up, but is completely realistic about the possibility. The complexity of Mark's situation makes for such compelling viewing because there is nothing predictable here...Scott and company make sure that there is nothing foregone about the conclusion of this story, having us on the edge of our seats as long as he wants. If I had one quibble about the screenplay, I had a little trouble swallowing the solution to sending Mark supplies came from some techno-geek (Donald Glover) who didn't even work at NASA.
Scott gets a real movie star performance from Matt Damon that earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Chastain and Pena provide solid support as do Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Eijefor, and Kristen Wiig as NASA personnel. Scott's attention to production is first rate, with Oscar nominated work in sound editing, sound mixing, production design, and visual effects. An epic adventure rich with human emotion and a central character you can't help but fall in love with.