Review of Martian (2015) by Patricia W — 21 Nov 2017

After Mark Watney is hit by debris during a storm on Mars, his crew is forced to leave him behind, presuming him dead. Mark awakes alone on Mars and has to use his skills as a botanist to survive until he can be rescued and brought home to earth.

Matt Damon is truly excellent as Mark Watney, even though he spends the majority of the film alone he manages to carry this movie with a great deal of humour, drama and taps into some very emotional moments. Jessica Chastain is also good as Commander Lewis and her and the other actors playing the rest of her crew have great chemistry together. Back at NASA headquarters, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Benedict Wong, Sean Bean and a number of other excellent actors play off each other well and keep the plot moving forward.

Considering a huge amount of the film is about scientific/mathematical calculations and growing potatoes , this is an incredibly entertaining film. There is a nice balance between drama and comedy and the scientific parts of the film are quite interesting, managing to simply explain what they are doing whilst not grinding the pace of the film to a halt. The film overall is a little on the long side and some of the obstacles or conversations at NASA could have been cut but the film still manages to maintain a level of tension and jeopardy about Watney's rescue.

The Martian is also beautifully shot with a great soundtrack. The use of pop music, explained by the use of the commander's CDS is also a nice touch an plays up some of the more comedic moments. The scenes inside the Hermes are also very well shot and look very convincing as the crew floats through moving parts of the ship as well as the scenes in space.

To summarise, this is an interesting, thrilling and surprisingly funny film in which people come together to save one man and as is often the case, that man in Matt Damon. Which is certainly not a bad thing.