Review of The Martian (2015) by Okiepokiesmokie — 02 Oct 2015

I didn't read the book and I'm not particularly into science. I'm very interested in space topics, though, so I thought I'd at least enjoy it. Sadly, I really did not.

For a movie about such a truly horrific and desolate situation, I was shocked that its tone was highly upbeat for 90% of the movie.

I found it lacking in tension, emotion, and character development. I thought it was much longer than it needed to be. There were times I was really truly bored. When the last montage came on, I felt myself drift off. There were so many montages.

The stakes for Mark's survival were never very high. He didn't appear to have much of a family at home that he missed (he asks Lewis to send his love to his parents once, but that's it), everything seemed to go very well for him in general. He always had a perfect solution for everything, he was basically super human. The isolation of his situation raree showed in his character. He got a bit huffy once when something broke and he was a bit emotional when he was finally being rescued, but he showed none of the signs of a person completely isolated for a year. He had no development and no attachments.

The sense of humor throughout felt cheesy to me. I cringed a lot. The jokes were like a what a 35 year old science professor picked up from a few months on the Internet. The use of curse words as humor is only funny if you're very young. I can't believe I'm seeing praise for that.

I thought the supporting characters were soulless. When asked if they would spend another bunch of years in space to return for Mark, not a SINGLE one objected? Everything in this universe existed for Mark and no one else. He was the universe's priority.

Donald Glover's character was bizzare, he existed for cheap, immature laughs.

One thing I will say is, it built a bit of tension when they were finally executing the rescue, but ultimately those scenes left me missing Interstellar and Gravity.

Overall, I really don't get the hype. This movie was boring, often cringe-worthy and lacked tension. The protagonist was cocky, didn't have many emotional attachments to earth and was smarter than everyone else.