Review of The Martian (2015) by Phasemaster — 07 Oct 2015
The Martian shows great promise, but ultimately fails to rise above the fray of platitudinous dialog and Matt Damon's inability to actually be as charming as he thinks he is. The film is at its best at the very beginning, where there is a true feeling of impending doom. But it soon devolves into triteness thanks to poorly written and underutilized characters played by great actors like Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, and Kristen Wiig.
Even Jessica Chastain (as the Hermes mission commander that left Matt Damon's character stranded on Mars) valiantly struggles to deliver lines that the audience saw coming an hour ago.
Although the film manages to be fairly entertaining, it fails to capture the intensity of similar movies like Gravity or Apollo 13--even though the main character is stranded several million miles further away from Earth. It's a disappointing effort for Ridley Scott, who seems much better at directing a fantasy/horror movies situated in space (i.e. - Alien and Prometheus) than the dumbed down quasi-realistic fare that is The Martian.
This review of The Martian (2015) was written by Phasemaster on 07 Oct 2015.
The Martian has generally received very positive reviews.
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