Guys I’ve got a great movie to tell you about!!
First, I want to say that I finished reading the book The Martian by Andrew Weir this week and loved it. I normally don’t like a lot of modern novels but this book resisted the modern cliche of having the lead character be all brooding and conflicted. It had the audaciousness to have a lead current-day character that is actually likable!!! I seriously feel like that is so rare in modern books (even YA we get a lot of Bellas and dystopian brooding characters snooze…).
In both the movie and the book I loved the character of Mark Watney and found even the smallest victories compelling. Plus, the overall story of his rescue is so exciting!
If you don’t know The Martian is about an astronaut named Mark (Matt Damon) who is left in a storm by his crew on Mars. Each day then presents Mark with a series of problems, which he uses his know-how as a botanist and scientist to solve.
I never thought I would be so excited for a character growing potatoes but I’m telling you in both the book and movie it is so thrilling when he harvests crops on Mars just based on his ingenuity and smarts.
He’s also such a likable character. In the movie and book much of his personality is presented through daily logs that he does. In these entries he is serious but also extremely funny. It feels like a well-rounded real person. Matt Damon is just nerdy enough and cool enough to pass off both sides of Mark’s personality. It really worked!
It is perhaps easy to compare The Martian to Interstellar because both have Matt Damon as a marooned astronaut but they are totally different films. One is a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life and the connection of individuals and the other is an engrossing action movie about a man trying to get rescued and survive.
It is perhaps closer to Gravity but that is really more of a thriller with Sandra Bullock’s character being much less of an expert and more a helpless pedestrian in space who has to figure out a way home. The tone in films is very different. I loved all 3 films so it is good company any way!
The surrounding players around Damon really helped as well. To me there wasn’t a single misfire in the cast. Director Ridley Scott did a great job and that is saying something considering some recent misfires like Exodus: Gods and Kings. Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, and more play the crew that leaves Mark for dead. For not being in that many scenes they are fleshed out characters that have to make difficult decisions about their lives verses one man left behind. Throughout the movie there is a looming question- ‘how valuable is one human being?’.
Jeff Daniels is great as the head of NASA. He has to deal with the bureaucratic side of things and could have been a one note bad man executive character but he’s not. He’s practical but wants to do what is right as well. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the mission director who becomes an advocate for Mark and in a way helps narrate the story back at home. Kristen Wiig is the PR rep for NASA and she does a good job being practical like needing a good photo of Mark on Mars to sell the public on him while still intensely caring for him too.
Sean Bean is a director who refuses to see the practical, bureaucratic side of things and Donald Glover is a young astronomer who has a breakthrough that helps the rescue. They all make such good use of their minimal screen time.
I was totally engrossed in this picture. It is the kind of film you want to finish and cheer. And this works because Mark is such a good person. You want to believe in the value of one person and that such effort would be made to rescue the one. A side of me kind of wishes it was a true story especially when the Chinese get involved. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all rooting for the same humans?
With Gravity there is a sense of relief when she is free from danger but it’s the kind of relief that you get at the end of a thriller. The bad guy (outer space) is defeated and the character can breath. The Martian is a triumph of human being over insane odds so it has more a tone of a Rocky movie or a sports movie with the underdog finishing victorious!
It’s a cliche but I literally was on the edge of my seat. I was leaning as close to the screen as I could get I was so anxious for everything to work out. I couldn’t have been more absorbed in the film. And just as in the book each victory for Mark makes you smile. It’s so satisfying!!
As far as content it is on a whole pretty tame. There are 4 F words and a few other profanities. You do see Matt Damon’s butt in a scene and he does surgery on himself that is bloody. That’s it. I have to say I would feel comfortable taking mature kids and teens to The Martian. It actually could inspire kids to see so many creative uses for science and math used by a variety of different personalities.
I loved The Martian in both book and movie form. I recommend reading the book first and then seeing the movie if you can. I did not see it in 3D or on Imax but I am sure it is cool in those formats.
Definitely my favorite live action film of the year. Go see it!
Overall Grade- A+ Content Grade – B-
Here’s my youtube review.
