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.
Jack Silbert, curator