Review: BRIDGE OF SPIES

BRIDGE OF SPIES  (DRAMA) 
3.5 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Alan Alda, Sebastian Koch, Domenick Lombardozzi, Scott Shepherd, Eve Hewson, Michael Gaston, Peter McRobbie, Billy Magnussen, Stephen Kunken, Dakin Matthews, Will Rogers
Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief strong language.
141 minutes
Verdict: Anchored by Spielberg's typically great direction and the great casting of Hanks and Rylance, BRIDGE OF SPIES is an engrossing, broadly-scoped story of the power of principles against insurmountable odds in the Cold War.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN BRIDGE OF SPIES IF YOU LIKED:
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN  (2002)
LINCOLN  (2012)
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY  (2011)
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR  (2007)
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.  (2005)

Spielberg is one of the all-time great directors, one whose decades-long career (JAWS, the film that solidified his reputation as a major filmmaker but was not even his first film, is 40 years old this year) had proven itself as one of the greatest runs ever well before now.  Every time he has another new film in the can, regardless of the subject matter, cast or whatever else, if Spielberg is directing, you can bet it's worth the time.  He has an unparalleled ability to cut to the human interest of his stories with powerful and insightful feeling, which he does with uncannily wide appeal and accessibility.  If Stanley Kubrick was a master of the cinematic mind, and Martin Scorsese is a master of the cinematic soul, then Spielberg is unquestionably a master of the cinematic heart.  But Spielberg's work is split between two halves of a heart, with only a bit of crossover in between, with a spirit of adventure in possession of one half, and the other is more mature and deeply sympathetic.  Spielberg's latest work, BRIDGE OF SPIES, is a product of the latter.  It's an "Oscar movie", a drama of real-world importance and gravity, and like his previous film, LINCOLN, explores a period of United States history that tested the ideals and promise of the nation with lessons learned, or rather, that ought to have been learned, for later generations.
BRIDGE OF SPIES reunites Spielberg with actor Tom Hanks (their fourth film together, following THE TERMINAL in 2004), who stars as James Donovan, a Brooklyn lawyer specializing in insurance settlement claims, who we're introduced to in the midst of finagling over whether an accident involving one insured driver and five claimants is a single incident or five.  He has a knack for approaching his cases with precision and unshakable single-mindedness, but even he is unnerved when his firm assigns him to defend Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy.  The year is 1957, and both Americans and Russians are perpetually terrified by the prospect of nuclear attack; while schoolchildren are taught to "duck and cover" in the case of such an incident, nothing following the failure of diplomacy is likely to save them in the case of such a catastrophe.
This is the first half, which is, admittedly, the more interesting part of the film, exploring the nature of a nation gripped by terror, and how different people respond with differing views of patriotic duty, whether to fight tooth and nail for greater good, or to actually be the greater good.  "We have no rule book," a CIA agent threatens Donovan, while the courts turn down his demands that Abel's civil rights be met, because Abel is not an American citizen.  The comparisons to the state of the union ten years ago, when we as a nation were seething from the terror of a new threat that we allowed to drown out our principles as Americans, are not difficult to see.  "We have a Constitution," Donovan counters to the agent, "That is our rule book."
In the second part, BRIDGE OF SPIES takes a sharp turn, one at which point the film lags a bit, before picking up its flow again at a new pace.  An American spy, Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) has been shot down in a U-2 spy plane while taking photographs over the Soviet Union, and the CIA is eager to get him back before anything can be extracted from Soviet interrogators, while the regime is already having a heyday over the embarrassment of the incident for the U.S.  Donovan is called upon to negotiate the exchange of Abel for Powers, but with another American, economics student Frederic Pryor, being held without charges in East Germany for finding himself on the wrong side of the under-construction Berlin Wall, Donovan complicates negotiations by insisting on Pryor's release as well.

The script is partly credited to Joel and Ethan Coen, a pair whose directing style is so distinct that their writing under their own direction and under the direction of another, the resemblance is minute at best, and although there are little quirks (such as Donovan's persistent cold while in Berlin after losing his coat, although that may very well be rooted in the historical fact) that feel traceable to their artistic mannerisms, the most notable Coen contribution appears to be Rudolph Abel.  As portrayed by character actor Mark Rylance (who will star as the eponymous "Big Friendly Giant" in Spielberg's upcoming Roald Dahl adaptation, THE BFG), Abel has a dry wit and gentlemanly candor that make him the movie's most sympathetic character, an unlikely position for a Soviet spy in an unmistakably pro-American movie, but it's not pro-American at all costs.  After all, that would be playing without a rule book, which we cannot afford to do as Americans.  There's a parallel to the two nations striving for supremacy, but the difference is crucial.
In response to the threat at home, it can be easy to forget how bad the threat abroad may be, but as we see the Berlin Wall going up to stem the flow of people trying to escape the devastated conditions of East Berlin, it's chilling, with the realization of entrapment setting in.  This is Spielberg telling the story of an average Joe forced to rise to the occasion of extraordinary circumstances, yet again, and if Donovan is Chief Brody, then the United States is probably Quint, and the Soviet regime has got to be the shark.  Hanks's stalwart Midwestern-style sincerity is akin to Jimmy Stewart in the role of Donovan, a deeply principled legal warrior willing to all necessary within view of his rule book to do his duty.  So likable and authentic, he bears the moral compass without being an insufferable goody-two-shoes, while taking a journey through these experiences that brings him out the other side as a changed man, unable to even watch a bunch of kids climbing fences carelessly in the American suburbs without feeling a shudder.

Images via DreamWorks/Fox 2000/Touchstone Pictures

Review: CRIMSON PEAK

CRIMSON PEAK  (MYSTERY-HORROR/ROMANTIC-DRAMA)
3.5 of of 4 stars
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Jonathan Hyde, Bruce Gray, Emil Coutts
Rated R for bloody violence, some sexual content and brief strong language.
119 minutes
Verdict: Visually sublime and emotionally satisfying, Guillermo del Toro's classically-styled haunted house story is a beautiful, bloody, Gothic soap opera.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN CRIMSON PEAK IF YOU LIKED:
THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE  (2001)
PAN'S LABYRINTH  (2006)
THE INNOCENTS  (1961)
REBECCA  (1940)
THE SHINING  (1980)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is one of the most talented creators of pop film art working today, and one of my favorite directors in general.  His undeniable speciality is in "monsters", monsters of many kinds, human and otherworldly; how they relate to us, what they say about us, and what we see in them on a subconscious level.  Outside of the certain controlling, rigidly methodical, ideological human characters that are a consistent monstrous presence in his films, the literal monsters of his works are most typically ghosts and vampires.  Ghosts typically represent the past, and vampires typically represent devourers of life forces, like obsessive control and fear.  The natural abode of such monsters, especially in the way del Toro treats them, is the fairy tale, as such, with the partial exception of his most recent and slightly disappointing (albeit entertaining) directorial feature, PACIFIC RIM, his movies are all fairy tales.  They're about innocents, usually children- other times, childlike characters- navigating a world of genuine evil that strives for immortality, but the moral good (complex though even the 'good' may be) achieves that immortality without even looking for it.  CRIMSON PEAK follows in the beautiful, romantic spirit of del Toro's best films, but blends with the boisterous entertainment value and pastiche of PACIFIC RIM and BLADE II, and it's very, very gruesome. 
Set in 1901, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, best known as the titular character of Tim Burton's 2010 ALICE IN WONDERLAND) is a young aspiring author in New York City and daughter of a widowed industrialist, when she is unexepectedly swept off of her feet by baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston, ideally cast in a role that was initially cast with Benedict Cumberbatch), a broke aristocrat visiting from England in hopes of obtaining funding for a mining enterprise.  She marries the baronet and moves with him to derelict Sharpe family estate of Allerdale, known locally as "Crimson Peak" for the abundant red clay rich in the utisol useful for brickmaking, the mining of which Thomas hopes will recuperate the family fortune his parents squandered.  They also live with his terse, mysterious sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain, who is marvelously sinister and passionate) who manages the household and, with her brother, hides the dark secrets of Allerdale that harbor terrifying specters which Edith begins to see upon her arrival.

Del Toro draws heavily upon iconic haunted house movies like REBECCA and THE INNOCENTS, as well as the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, for his story, which is a standard but fun Gothic horror scenario that serves as the canvas for his gorgeous visual poetry and soapy but nonetheless swooning, moving melodrama.  It's more closely related to his independent Spanish-language films than his Hollywood work, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE in particular, which is referenced specifically in one image, but it's doesn't tie together quite as neatly as those.  It has a similar soul, but brings with it Grand Guignol thrills that those films were too restrained for.  Although CRIMSON PEAK is almost as much romance as it is horror, it's more closely identifiable as horror than any of his previous films except perhaps MIMIC, his problematic Hollywood debut that was ultimately taken from him by the studio, Miramax.  It's also possibly his most gruesome film (the only other contender is BLADE II, which has plenty of action-oriented gore), and brings to mind an apparent del Toro preoccupation with the violent disfiguration of human faces (on top of scenes in CRONOS, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE and PAN'S LABYRINTH), with horrific but also strangely elegant savagery.  It's not scary as much as it is deliciously spooky and atmospheric, which doesn't necessarily mean it's not a "horror movie"; there's certainly no shortage of homage to classic Gothic horror.
Like all of del Toro's films, CRIMSON PEAK is a sublime visual tapestry, and would be well-deserving in the art direction and costume categories in the upcoming awards season.  Blood and blood-like imagery are prominent throughout; scarlet gowns, red-jeweled rings, and most of all, the vibrant red clay of Crimson Peak, into which the crumbling ruins of Allerdale are slowly sinking as the bloody mud oozes up through the floorboards like the dark past coming back to claim the house.  Del Toro's new film is not a terribly complex narrative; it's a sumptuous and aggressive but simple soap opera with ghosts, and as appealing as that is in itself, there are numerous rich stories layered throughout the visuals.  It's so beautiful and rich in emotion, it's entrancing.

Review: PAN

PAN (FANTASY/ADVENTURE)
1.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Joe Wright
Starring: Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar, Nonso Anozie, Amanda Seyfried, Kathy Burke, Lewis MacDougall, Cara Delivinge, Tae-joo Na, Jack Charles, Bronson Webb, Paul Kaye
Rated PG for fantasy action violence, language and some thematic material.
111 minutes
Verdict: So bold in its colorful, absurd style and so sincere in its hackneyed "chosen one" plot that it almost seems wrong to ridicule, PAN is the fun "WTF is this?" kind of bad movie, but bad, regardless.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN PAN IF YOU LIKED:
PETER PAN  (2003)
HOOK  (1991)
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE  (2005)
ANNA KARENINA  (2012)
ALICE IN WONDERLAND  (2010)

I'm thinking of a word that describes Joe Wright's PAN that starts with 'batshi' and ends with 'tinsane'.  It's kind of like MAD MAX: FURY ROAD's awkward fraternal twin that wound up without the brains or beauty.  For both, Warner Brothers approved a $150 million sum to a filmmaker with a distinct vision to go hog-wild, and both are highly stylish, very bold products, but where that worked so marvelously to create a brilliant masterpiece in FURY ROAD, PAN is a brilliant failure.  PAN is a bad movie, but it is such a beautifully absurd bad movie that it's hard to not be amused.
A more absurd prequel than HOOK was an absurd sequel, PAN begins in World War II (an unexpected time to start a Peter Pan origin story, not only about 25 years after Sir J.M. Barrie first penned Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, but also a few years after Barrie's death) London, where young Peter (newcomer Levi Miller, who's harmless but super low-key in a sea of over-the-top performances) is one of many boys in an orphanage run by surprisingly malicious nuns who apparently have an arrangement selling orphans into slavery to Captain Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman, in a deliriously big performance), who takes the boys back to Neverland to mine for "pixum", aka "fairy dust".  When they take Peter however, Blackbeard believes he may be the "Pan", the one prophesied to destroy him, so before Blackbeard can kill him, Peter escapes the mines with a fellow miner, James Hook (Garrett Hedlund, perpetually growling like an ax-wielding Jack Nicholson).  To further learn of his prophesied destiny, Peter and Hook go to the "Indians" (I don't remember if they were ever referred to as such, but Tiger Lily is caucasian and the rest are a multi-cultural/multi-racial stew who explode into colorful chalk dust clouds when killed), led by warrior princess Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara), who hold the secret of Peter's heritage and the fabled fairy kingdom filled with pixum.  So, yeah.

PAN has a lot of big laughs, but they're generally of the incredulous "Oh my hell, I can't believe nobody stepped in to say 'Stop! Don't do that'" sort.  Actually, that kind of artistic audacity is commendable and not in itself a bad thing, but it all makes for a bigger, grander misfire when the more fundamental elements are so clunky.  The rushed-through story is a hackneyed run-through of the same "chosen one" formula that THE LEGO MOVIE so aptly sent up last year, taken with such total sincerity and shameless weirdness that it shouldn't be made fun of, but Blackbeard is introduced while forcing his thousands of quarry slaves to sing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", just because, and so it's hard not to.  It's not a terrible movie, however it is a bad one, and yet, it's bad in that wonderful midnight movie "What the #*$% am I watching?" fashion that can be a lot of fun in its own way.  Unfortunately, the family audiences this is gunning for rarely goes in for that sort of thing.

Review: THE WALK

THE WALK  (DRAMA/BIOPIC) 
3 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Ben Kingsley, Ben Schwartz, Steve Valentine, Benedict Samuel
Rated PG for thematic elements involving perilous situations, and for some nudity, language, brief drug references and smoking.
123 minutes
Verdict: Robert Zemeckis's recreation of high-wire artist Philippe Petit's "artistic crime of the century" starts out kind of kooky, but pays off with breathtaking spectacle.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN THE WALK IF YOU LIKED:
MAN ON WIRE  (2008)
HUGO  (2011)
ANT-MAN  (2015)
FLIGHT  (2012)
PREMIUM RUSH  (2012)

THE WALK is absurd, but so is the true story it's based on.  In 1974, French performance artist Philippe Petit established himself as the undeniable world champion of high-wire walking for time immemorial by walking, kneeling, dancing and even laying on a wire cable 1,350 ft (400 meters) above the ground, fastened between the newly-opened Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.  It's about as impossible a thing that could be done that has very much been done.  There's a great documentary all about it and the years of planning it took to pull off the illegal stunt called MAN ON WIRE, which you can stream on Netflix, but Robert Zemeckis's new narrative film version is pretty good too, and spectacular in stereoscopic 3D.

The role of Petit is performed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose affectation of a thick French accent is a little goofy at first, but is coherent within the loony (or dreamlike, if you prefer) tone that is especially prevalent during the first half.  With instruction from seasoned high-wire performer Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) and in collaboration with his girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), a fellow street performer, Philippe begins preparing to cross the towers as soon as he learns of their construction, a plan he refers to as "le coup".  Assembling a team of similarly artistically-minded rebels to help him pull of the "artistic crime of the century", the movie shifts from a highly-stylized storybook fantasy in Paris to a heist thriller in New York.
As Petit, Gordon-Levitt narrates the film to the audience from his perch on Lady Liberty's torch, with the 1970s Manhattan skyline in the background, a narration that's occasionally intrusive, especially when it comes in during the climactic "walk", but eventually has a strong payoff.  Capitalizing on the 3D cinematography, the main point of which is enhancing the vertigo-inducing effect of the titular stories-high walk, Zemeckis fills up the rest with creative angles, transitions and effects akin to those in HUGO and LIFE OF PI, but without the clearly fantastical angles of those films.  The effect is whimsical at times, and at more times, it's only almost whimsical but also humorous, and the stranger than fiction, reasonably faithful accounting of events is modestly endearing in its own way.
The heist aspect of the story is when things really tie together with a kooky sense of humor, high stakes and edge-of-your-seat thrills.  We know how things will play out (especially if you've seen MAN ON WIRE, the events in which are nearly identical with a couple of major points not present in Zemeckis's film), but the progression of the inevitable hiccups and problem-solving is plentiful in humor and heart well-served by the characters.  The walk, which is lengthy, played out in approximately real time, is well earned and breathtaking in 3D, as Petit's cable cuts through the foreground, emphasizing the sheer depth down to the streets below.
It's not as precise as the wire-walker's steps must be, not by a long shot, but as the sum of its parts, it's a solid and definitely unique film that isn't quite a "family movie" in the usual sense, but that most families can enjoy together regardless.  The first two-thirds is really just amusing set dressing for the super-charged thrill of the climactic 'walk', though.

Images via TriStar

Review: SICARIO

SICARIO  (CRIME-THRILLER/DRAMA)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Raoul Trujillo, Julio Cedillo, Hank Rogerson, Bernardo Saracino, Maximiliano Hernandez, Jesus Navarez-Castillo
Rated R for strong violence, grisly images, and language.
121 minutes
Verdict: Gorgeously shot and full of visceral thrills, SICARIO is also a chilling, thoughtful meditation on an unwinnable conflict and its intimate consequences.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SICARIO IF YOU LIKED:
TRAFFIC  (2000)
PRISONERS  (2013)
THE HURT LOCKER  (2009)
TRAINING DAY  (2001)
EDGE OF TOMORROW  (2014)

No war is a 'good war'.  As former president Jimmy Carter said when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will never learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."  War breeds moral decay and a war without a clearly defined enemy, like the so-called "War on Terror" or "War on Drugs", creates an environment lacking clearly defined ethics.  Such is the world on display in Denis Villeneuve's deliciously intense and admirably thoughtful dramatic thriller SICARIO.
Emily Blunt stars as Kate Macer, a straight arrow FBI agent picked up by cavalier Department of Defense adviser Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and his steely-eyed partner Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro) to help take down a major cartel boss.  Although initially eager to see the crime bosses who killed two of her men in an Arizona raid brought to justice, Macer is gradually disillusioned by the increasingly hazy ethics and improvisational procedure that her new bosses at the DOD and the CIA practice and expect her to take part in as well.
The cinematography by Roger Deakins is gorgeous, emphasizing the sharp contrasts of vast Mexican landscapes and densely packed cities with intimate, claustrophobic perspectives, as well as the distinct dark and the light, all itself in contrast to the thoroughly murky nature of characters' actions and motivations.  For all its weight, SICARIO is also an intense, exciting thriller.  In one of the great set pieces, Graver's team becomes trapped in a traffic jam at the border while transporting a high-profile extracted prisoner, and in the midst of dozens of tightly-packed cars full of civilians, they become aware of cartel men within the jam sent to prevent their crossing back over.  The drums in Johann Johannsson's musical score beat menacingly as paranoia sets in, and to Macer's horror, for the rest on their team, the conflict is reduced to them vs. us with numerous civilians in the crossfire.  The sequence is beautifully executed, visually and psychologically, playing off the landscape and the chaotic anarchy within the neat ordering of backed-up vehicles.  It's one of the most exciting action scenes outside of a Mad Max movie that I've seen this year.

It's an urgent and angry film, a powerful exposé of an apparently hopeless and ever worsening situation on an intimate level.  It's a fairly well-known sentiment; the War on Drugs is a failure which has only escalated violence in Mexico and around the U.S.-Mexico border, but SICARIO takes the plunge into the dark, nitty-gritty of this.  Individual human beings are so susceptible to moral failure and misunderstanding, and the pursuit of justice and order all too easily descends into vengeance and chaos.  It is the nature of the cycle of violence that one's justice is another one's injustice, and each begets another in an ever-escalating, ever-perpetuating back and forth.  Drugs themselves are very much on the sidelines while the war revolves around responding to each side's increased pressure and violence, and neither side is so much a 'side' as they are the idea of one.  The film begins in Chandler, Arizona, where the Mexican drug cartels have made an exceptionally rare move on U.S. soil to the horror of government agencies and media, and we as the audience are startled too, but by the film's close, the war zone is still very much alive, but now tucked away south of the border where we find it so much more tolerable.

Images via Lionsgate

Review: THE MARTIAN

THE MARTIAN  (ADVENTURE/SCI-FI)
3 out of 4 stars
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Benedict Wong, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Donald Glover, Sebastian Stan, Askel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis
Rated PG-13 for some strong language, injury images, and brief nudity.
141 minutes
Verdict: Buoyed by a facetious but intellectual attitude, THE MARTIAN is a solid adventure story with an encouraging promotion of survival skills, innovation and problem-solving, despite running overlong.
YOU MAY ENJOY THE MARTIAN IF YOU LIKED:
INTERSTELLAR  (2014)
PROMETHEUS  (2012)
APOLLO 13  (1995)
MISSION TO MARS  (2000)
GRAVITY  (2013)

Continuing the trend of the past few years in which Hollywood releases a new NASA space adventure in the fall, preceded by GRAVITY in 2013 and INTERSTELLAR in 2014, THE MARTIAN brings with it the humor that was mostly absent from those especially serious films, and while it doesn't quite have the heart and efficiency of GRAVITY, it excels in many of the areas that Christopher Nolan's INTERSTELLAR tried and failed.  THE MARTIAN doesn't bother much with putting on airs, despite laying out the science very thickly, and unlike the unintentionally goofy propaganda piece that Nolan's film was last year, it's an intentionally goofy adventure that's far from perfect, but still a proper good space adventure.  Now that I've gotten my snipes at INTERSTELLAR out of the way...
In THE MARTIAN, based on the 2011 novel by Andy Weir, adapted by Drew Goddard (co-writer/director of THE CABIN IN THE WOODS and writer of CLOVERFIELD), Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded alone on the planet Mars when his crew believes him a casualty while escaping a deadly sandstorm.  Rather than wait to die, Watney opts to "science the shit out of this thing," figuring out how to grow plant life in the hostile environment and trying to contact help on Earth, while NASA scientists on Earth, led by Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) and mission leader Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), discover his survival thanks to satellite images and begin planning the practically impossible rescue mission.
It's not quite the Matt Damon Show, with a lot actually going on elsewhere as everyone is trying to figure out how to bring him home, but the most interesting stuff is in the scenes on Mars.  Wildly hit-and-miss director Ridley Scott seems to be taking a back seat to the dominating influences of Goddard's witty, procedural script and Damon's charismatic performance, which is a good move, but Scott indulges in the big images of a Martian landscape.  Filmed on a massive sound stage and supplemented by images of frequent Mars stand-in Wadi Rum in Jordan, the Red Planet is presented in impressive scope.  The real highlight is the science however, which is admirable, although it's sometimes difficult to keep up with the rapid-fire engineering concepts, not that it inhibits an overall understanding of the film.  The trial-and-error process of the science does run overlong, and the length of the film is probably its greatest fault, running at least 20 minutes longer than it should at 141 minutes.
Buoyed by a facetious but intellectual attitude, THE MARTIAN is a solid adventure story with an encouraging promotion of survival skills, innovation and problem-solving at the core of human experience.