Review of The Martian (2015) by Ginak — 04 Oct 2015

I can see why The Martian, especially in 3-D, is popular. Certainly it is well made and not sleep-inducing, even though it is about science and not myth (Ridley Scott’s usual interest). It is a long two and a half hours, and although it never gets boring (especially if you like “reality” – ha ha) and even though the end from the start seems like a foregone conclusion – we will make this a happy ending dammit, regardless of the real hazards of space.

You have oodles of time to admire all the incredibly unrealistic hero-geeks, and I didn’t believe it for a minute. Definitely it is not even half as good as Alien (a classic) or even Prometheus. But you really have to be a master filmmaker to keep people awake for 150 minutes when there is no real antagonist and you have to shut your mind off and just depend on raw skill and Matt Damon’s likeability to pull a film off.

I bought the book a while ago, but I think I will recycle it. Once is enough.