Review of The Martian (2015) by Richard D — 11 Aug 2016

I'm generally not a big fan of Ridley Scott. His films look wonderful, but he has a marked tendency to sacrifice character and plot in favour of production design. Even a magnificent film like "Blade Runner" suffers from numerous plot incoherencies because he just doesn't seem to care about a film making sense as much as it looking immaculate.

Sometimes this tendency works in his favour though, and this film is a pretty clear example. This film has a very simple and straightforward plot, and to really succeed it needs to make you believe in all the technical details.

In Scott's hands, it really does. It's an immaculately constructed slice of big, mainstream entertainment, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.