Review of Martian (2015) by Bob B — 18 Apr 2016

My review will be of the movie "The Martian" starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott. In this review I will be discussing story, characters and acting, and adapted material. Spoiler alert by the way for any who have not seen the movie.

First up is story, the story takes place a few years in the future where a manned exploration of mars has set up a camp on the surface of Mars. The exploration team has been on the surface for around 20 days and is suddenly hit by a major sandstorm which forces them to get off planet. Trying to escape to the nearby rocket lead actor Matt Damon is struck by a rogue piece of debris and is knocked away from the group and presumed dead. Now from this point in the movie the action is split into two parts, half the story is on Mars with Damon trying to survive and the other half is NASA trying to find ways to rescue him. The film does a very nice representation of hopelessness in space and of portraying real science when Damon is forced to deal with such problems like finding water or figuring out how to travel long distances.

Second is the film's characters. The main characters are Mark Watney played by Matt Damon, Chris Beck played by Sean Bean, and Venkat Kapoor played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The characters in this film play off each other very well as they try to help Mark get off Mars and are very in synch with each other, which is common with veteran actors. As the movie goes on you get a very good connection with the characters and if you're anything like me, you get immersed hard in movies with greatly portrayed characters and genuinely care about their struggles and triumphs. The acting is so greatly acted that I honestly couldn't find any faults with it except some 4th wall breaking but that was it, the actors really gave it their all in this movie.

Most going into the movie would not know that the film is actually an adaptation of a book written by Andy Weir. Now some say that books are better than the movies and that sometimes people say the movies are better than the books I.E. Lord of the ring, Harry potter, etc, etc, but to me the book and movie are on par with each other. The movie is very well adapted and includes a lot of explanation and scenes from the book that would otherwise be left out if directed by anyone else. Unfortunately not everything could be adapted and probably that was for the best, because in the book the author gets deep into real mathematics that would not be interesting to a movie going audience. I have to give it to Ridley for doing an incredible job in adapting the book into a insanely good movie.

So all in all this review painted the movie in a very good light and for others they may agree, but some might have seen some flaws that I didn't pick up on and so on and so forth. But as a movie goer who enjoys great films I highly recommend this so any and all willing to give it a chance.