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.