Movie Monday - The Martian
The first thought when I heard about The Martian was “Is this Interstellar?” It was unsettling - I didn't love Interstellar as much as the rest of the world. The obvious parallels between the two films were immediately disheartening and did not bode well for the story of Mark Watney (Matt Damon), especially considering how poorly people thought of the character Mann (also Matt Damon) from Interstellar. All I could think was that there had better be some dynamite writing and a compelling story to attempt a full recovery, but then I learned that it was directed by Ridley Scott, which made me wince a bit. Scott’s last two films (Exodus: Gods and Kings, and The Counselor) were terrible compared to his greats like Alien and Gladiator. Luckily he seems to have gotten out of his funk; The Martian did not disappoint.
Let’s end all talk of Interstellar here by proclaiming that The Martian is equally as scientifically relevant (possibly more so), is better written, has more compelling characters, and was more entertaining considering what it had to work with. The film wastes no time getting to the point: Mark Watney was left behind by his crew who presumed him dead after getting hit by an antenna during a vicious Martian sandstorm that forced them to leave the planet earlier than expected. He is forced to survive alone with limited resources and no contact with any other human. He follows one of the marketing slogans of the movie and proclaims that he’s going to need to “Science the Shit out of this”, and that’s the one of the most satisfying aspects of the film.
The basic rules of survival apply, even on Mars: find shelter, find water, find food, and then figure out the bigger problems. The story is allowed to focus on the food issue the most since shelter is already set up and water is quickly engineered by (carefully) burning hydrazine rocket fuel. Documenting everything he does, we move along with Watney either through his video logs or via the various cameras mounted on his space suit, rover, or throughout his home base. This isn’t a Found Footage film so there are plenty of moments where we shift into a third person perspective, but it is never distracting and the moments where we are watching Watney through his video logs are some of the most enjoyable.
The single person dialogue is both informative and entertaining, and surprisingly avoids any sort of campy feeling that you might get from films with similar means of telling the story. The nearest film that comes to mind for comparison is Cast Away, but it isn’t a good comparison because The Martian has strong dialogue (or maybe rather monologue since he’s talking to a camera), a character that knows what he’s doing, and a whole agency worth of people trying to get him out of his situation. The problem solvers in the audience will constantly be guessing and second guessing what will happen next, sometimes with success and sometimes without. The pacing is fast enough to keep you interested despite the two and a half hour runtime, and the score (by my personal favorite composer Harry Gregson-Williams) provides the right tone to help you feel the same things Watney feels as he hits his high and low points.
The supporting cast, including Jessica Chastain, Mike Peña, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Jeff Daniels, provides the framework to keep us watching between the scenes of Watney’s science-fest. As usual, Peña’s Rick Martinez provides the comic relief (not that Watney needed any) while Chastain’s Commander Lewis give the film the extra push it needs in the end to keep things interesting. The characters at NASA (Ejiofor and Daniels) support the Earth-half of the movie and we get just enough but not too much of them to form a complete plot that makes the whole trip worth the time and money.
Rescuing Matt Damon one more time is something that you’ll want to pay ticket price for. The few small issues I had with the film were overshadowed by the rest of what made it great. The Martian earns a 4.5 out of 5.