3.5 stars out of 5
I’d seen the trailer a while ago, but by the time The Martian came out, I totally forgot what it was about. Martians, maybe? I saw a picture of Matt Damon looking all astronaut-y. Maybe he befriends a martian? Maybe he *is* a shape-shifting martian? (Ooh, not a bad idea — get me Project Greenlight on the phone.) Eh, I figured I’d see it. I like Damon, and director Ridley Scott has made some cool sci-fi stuff: Alien, Blade Runner, that 1984 Macintosh commercial.
So, anyway, he *is* an astronaut, assumed to be killed as a NASA crew aborts its mission during a crazy Mars storm and hastily flees the Red Planet. The End! No, wait, there’s more. Incredulously, Damon is alive — he’s alive! But the ship is gone baby gone and in space, no one can hear you scream.
What we get here is a tale of solitude and survival. Can smart-guy Damon live long enough to be rescued? (Assuming he can figure out a way to make contact with Earth in the first place.) Now, have we had other movies sort of like this? Sure we have. There was Gravity and there was 127 Hours and Cast Away and ooh I really liked Moon, that was a good one. So what sets The Martian apart? Well, for one, it’s on Mars. So that’s something. And time is handled in a compelling way. Mars is, like, really far away, so Damon will have to stay alive for years to have any sort of shot. A hundred twenty-seven hours would be a total cakewalk for this dude.
Also good is a repeated appreciation of math and science. Instead of laser guns, it’s our old friend problem solving to the rescue here. Damon is a botanist. Can he grow food on Mars? Can he create water? There is thinking and calculating and trial-and-error.
The problem with science in a sci-fi movie is that some of it’s going to be fi. So maybe you’re sitting there thinking, “Hmmm, that could be feasible… and maybe that too…” But then where do you draw the line before it’s bonkers nonsense? Which then maybe lessens the impact of “real” science earlier on. I don’t know.
Another science problem is when the — oh, spoiler alert, he does make contact, hey don’t get mad, the poster says BRING HIM HOME — when the astronauts and NASA guys and Jet Propulsion Laboratory nerds are talking, they keep dumbing it way down for us stupid audience members. “Say this salt shaker is Mars” yadda yadda. I know, I know, you have Germans in a movie and they’re speaking English because we can’t understand German. Fine. But all these super geniuses speaking so very casually in The Martian was kind of off-putting.
Now that I’ve spoiled everything, I might as well mention other actors. Jessica Chastain, we like her, she’s the commander of the Mars mission and has an appropriate gravitas. Jeff Daniels is head of NASA and it’s like he walked straight off the set of The Newsroom and directly onto this set and is playing the exact same character. One of the Mara sisters is in this as an astronaut and does not distinguish herself (maybe Scott could’ve given her a dragon tattoo or something?). Sean Bean is a NASA guy who cares about the crew and I’ve always liked the name Sean Bean. Chiwetelu Ejiofor did 12 years as a slave, so 4 years planning a rescue mission is nothing. Donald Glover from Community is a squirrelly nerd-hipster and actually pretty good — funny without chewing the scenery. Mackenzie Davis is the female NASA hipster and for a hot minute I thought she was Greta Gerwig and that gave me what the French refer to as a “frisson.” In a horrendous bit of casting, Kristen Wiig is the NASA public relations person. You do NOT want to be watching a “serious” movie and suddenly go, “oh, haha, it’s Kristen Wiig.” You know who was good and believable: Benedict Wong as the head of JPL. Who else? Is Alec Baldwin in this? Oh no, that was the preview for the Will Smith concussion movie.
Oh, and Damon. He’s good, he’s always good. I was disappointed that the movie — beyond a line spoken by Ejiofor — didn’t really delve into the psychological impact of being THE ONLY PERSON ON A PLANET with NO HUMAN CONTACT. I feel like Damon didn’t get to stretch his acting muscles as much as he might’ve, but that’s really the fault of the script.
Just like this review, the movie is a bit too long: 141 minutes, I don’t know what that is in solar days. And so I liked it a little less as it dragged on, away from sci and closer to big-Hollywood-dumb fi. Still, there’s plenty of cool stuff here, from Martian landscapes (I sprung for the 3-D which gave it extra depth) to realistic-looking spacecraft, and the reliable drama of trying to save Private Ryan or whatever Damon’s name is in this one.
Moon was one of the best of this type of movie. I tend to think there aren’t many surprises in store in a movie like this. A fellow gets stranded and left behind and has to survive….he does survive! The end. But I’m ready to see it and be surprised by the plot. Maybe there are twists and turns that I have no second guessed! Like in Moon. That was totally unexpected.
Jack, you might like this Roches’ song “Keep On Doing…” I sang and played it for a couple decades here and there at open mics. Then about the time Obama was elected, the concept of “change” became more important than doing the same old thing.
The song has a great flatted 5th recurring; the bridge changes key and into a sweet children type of progression. The lyrics however …. so last century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcQ6Mb_wqNQ
you do know about the Roches connection to Paul Simon, don’t you?
Really nice tune, thanks! Wikipedia tells that Simon hired them as backing singers, smart move. I don’t know much about the Roches, but I loved their song “Pounding” on the Crossing Delancey soundtrack. This Martian movie has a soundtrack that’s a little too obvious.
Geez, even Jonathan Lethem spouted a few words after my comment last weekend. It’s Always Forever different face to phace.
i thought the segment with “Waterloo” by Abba was cutesy cute in The Martian. Other than that I was very bored. A waste of money. Stupid plot, characters. I could go on. I gave in to the 2 or 3 reviews I heard it being great and all. 3-D was cute too. I wouldn’t be too shy about giving it a zero out of 5 stars.
Jack, have you seen the tv show “Intelligence for your Life”? It may be off the air, but I saw it several times this summer. John Tesh is the host, and in a roundabout way, it reminds me a lot of how you curate SiW. Check it out!
Jack, I wish I would have read your review before I plunked down my money. Drew Goddard has serious gravitas as a screenwriter, he wrote many great LOST episodes. But there were a lot of holes in the plot and I really had to suspend my disbelief a couple of times. And I’m not saying this was a good choice or a bad choice, but it was v. odd that there was no onscreen presence of Damon’s characters family. Wouldn’t that be a natural part of the story?
You are right, Moon is a far superior movie in this genre (although this is inherently better than “All is Lost”).
Very good point about the family (or lack thereof)! Am thinking back to Apollo 13, the wedding ring suddenly tumbling down the drain.
I wasn’t a LOST watcher, though i keep seeing it mentioned, especially because of the creator’s involvement in The Leftovers.
Speaking of “Lost,” am still waiting for All Is Lost to show up on a random cable channel….
Maybe you would have liked the book. They definitely didn’t dumb down the science in. It was mostly all his working out problems through the use of science, yet not in a boring textbooky way. I really enjoyed that aspect of it. But I felt like it could have used more on the character development side. Yes, they got a *little* more into the psychological effects of being the only man on a planet for however long, and there’s a little more about his crew. But it always struck me as odd that it was like this guy had no one back home… a brief mention of his parents. And seriously Matt Damon the hot astronaut doesn’t have anyone back home? Please. I think you just needed some more of that, or something, to connect with him. And the movie didn’t do enough with his humor he had in the book. I agree, they could have had more opportunity with Matt. All in all I liked it, which I rarely say for something I read first. But I agree with your review!
Haha, yeah, i thought we were going to get some backstory like… Damon and the commander used to date, something like that!