The Martian "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this!"

Right OK for a change (or a slight one) I thought I would do a review of a brand new film that is just out in the cinemas and that film is The Martian, starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott.  Is it a good film???  Or will it be down there with most of Ridley's average films these days?  Let's take a look.....

And yep even though I won't divulge the whole plot (trust me I won't and I'll keep it quite short for once!) there will still be a few SPOILERS AHEAD!!  

STORY

Right so a bit about the story which starts off on the planet Mars (hence the title I guess) where a team astronauts are on a mission.  However the planet is suddenly hit by an intense storm which forces the team to evacuate but one of the team, Mart Watney (Matt Damon) is lost and presumed dead by the others who take off and leave him behind at the order of the mission commander, Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain).  Watney however survives the storm but his communications equipment has been destroyed and he must find a way to keep himself alive on the planet, which he does by using his skills as a botanist, he grows potatoes within the base the team had built on the planet surface.  Watney calculates that he must try and keep himself alive for three years long enough hopefully to journey to the landing site for the sucessive ship Aries IV.  Watney also keeps a series of video logs to keep himself going and also makes modifications to the base's rover so it can make longer journeys.

On Earth sometime after the initial announcement was made that Watney had died, NASA engineers Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Mindy Park (MacKenzie Davis) discover from the Mars satelitte footage that Watney survived and they start to plan out how to contact him.  The NASA director, Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) insists though that they don't tell the rest of Watney's crew who have now been reassigned to another mission onboard the Hermes in case Watney doesn't survive.  Watney however manages to locate a pathfinder probe which had been inactive since 1997 and uses it to contact NASA.  And its from here that Watney must try and find a way to keep himself alive on Mars and for NASA to try and figure out a way they can bring him back home....

THOUGHTS

I think its safe to say that after some recent disappointments that the Martian is easily Ridley Scott's best film in quite some time (especially after the average Prometheus and the poor film that is The Counsellor) as its an entertaining and at times gripping film which deals with one man's survival on a barren planet.  Personally myself I always enjoy watching films where one man (or woman) has to adapt and survive in a lone habitat such as Tom Hanks in Cast Away and this is another fine example of that.  The tone of the film is also rather surprisingly quite light hearted given its main character is stranded on an alien planet where there is no breathable atmosphere and his chances of survival long term are pretty slim.  And that in itself is also part of why the film works very well as Scott could easily have gone down another route of making it a rather dispairing and heavy going experience but thankfully that is not the case here.

PERFORMANCES 

As for the performances well they are all pretty top notch starting with Matt Damon who is excellent in the lead role of Mark Watney, the astronaut who is left stranded on Mars after being presumed dead by his crew mates.  Damon after being in the not entirely disimilar Interstellar (but a bit more realistic it has to be said) and playing a somewhat crazed astronaut, thankfully plays Watney as a sane man who uses his skills to keep himself alive.  Damon also has some good moments and dialogue in the film such as the scene where he (SPOILER!) has to perform emergency surgery on himself after his spacesuit had been pierced by a piece of metal.  Then there is the scene where he finally makes contact with NASA and he finds out that NASA haven't told his other team mates that he is alive and he starts furiously typing out swear words which are broadcast all over the world!  Damon even has some amusing moments such as the scene where he makes some calculations and he says "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this!".  Then there are the scenes where Watney has to force himself to listen to Lewis's leftover collection of disco music to keep himself going and he says to NASA "Tell Commander Lewis, disco music sucks!".  Then there is the scene where after Watney has successfully crown some crops in the Mars base he says while recording a video log "I don't want to come off as arrogant here, but I'm the greatest botanist on this planet!".

As for the other performances (which I don't have reference to much of their dialogue so I won't mention any) they are also really good such as Chiwetel Ejiofor who does very well as the NASA scientist who plays his part in helping to try and bring Watney back home.  Jeff Daniels also seems to have a bit of fun in his somewhat pompous role as the NASA director Teddy Sanders who intends to play things as safe as he can in order to maintain NASA's public image especially after they incorrectly announce that Watney died.  Sean Bean also does well (still using his Northern accent of course) as Mitch Henderson, a NASA mission director who is keen to tell Watney's crew mates that he survived and also plays a crucial part in trying to get Watney back.

Jessica Chastain also is very good as Commander Lewis who makes the difficult decision to leave Watney behind and she has too much love for disco music and ABBA!  And as for the other cast members Michael Pena and Kate Mara (who coincidentally both appeared in the film Shooter) also do well in their part as the other Hermes and Aries III crew members Rick Martinez and Beth Johanssen.  And lastly MacKenzie Davis is good as the key NASA engineer Mindy Park, who discovers that Watney survived and starts off NASA's attempts to communicate with Watney.

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC

As for the film's director, Ridley Scott does an excellent job here and keeps the film's pacing fairly taut even though the film does feel a little overlong he does more than enough to keep an audience interested in Watney's situation.  Scott's incredible visual sense also is at the foreground here once again and the film looks spectacular (also thanks to the film's cinemaphotographer Dariusz Wolski) especially during its Mars sequences which were shot on location in Wadi Rum, a valley located in Jordan and it was also filmed at Korda studios in Budapest and about 20 sets were constructed for the film. 

Music wise the film also features a pretty good score by Harry Gregson-Williams which is quite atmospheric and well suited for the film (which at times seems to echo the score for The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).  This score also marked the third score that Gregson-William had done in collaboration with Ridley Scott (although Ridley didn't the write the music of course!).  The film also uses some disco music tracks as well such as "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor and also of course David Bowie's "Starman" (well I guess they had to work that one in somehow!).

FLAWS

As for The Martian's flaws.... well yeah OK there are one two things that come to mind for starters you have to question whether or not if Watney could realistically have survived on Mars for as long as he did.  And the first thing that comes to mind that raises this doubt is that spacesuit is punctured early on in the film and if that was the case that surely he would be dead pretty much straight away!  Its also funny how Watney doesn't start to lose weight alot sooner than he does as he lives off a diet of potatos and bread and that's it then surely that wouldn't be enough to maintain his weight and its only later in after a few years we finally see that Watney has lost quite a bit of weight due to his need to ration his food.

Another scene that doesn't make sense somehow is when Watney access's one of the crew's laptop's (which he takes from a storage crate) which must have been surely days after he had been left stranded yet the laptop somehow manages to boot up with no problem.  But surely if the laptop had been left uncharged it would have no charge left in it!  So the film in these instances makes some assumptions which they are guessing an audience wouldn't really notice.

And lastly I have to say a bit like Watney that the inclusion of the disco music is a bit annoying and in the end it is used more as a bit of a comic relief than anything else.  And it was revealed that Ridley himself is a bit of an ABBA fan so perhaps that is why they decided to work its use into the film!  But as the film goes on it starts to grate a little bit in its use although perhaps that's the film's way of getting you a bit inside Watney's predicament as he forces himself to listen to it as a distraction to keep himself going.

Anyway that's the flaws looked at.

SUM UP

So to sum up the Martain is a very entertaining and gripping sci-fil film which I have to say its well worth checking out as it has some excellent performances, amazing visuals and a pretty decent score also.  The film is maybe just a tad too overlong though but given its length of 2 hours and 21 minutes it doesn't lag that much and overall its still one of Ridley Scott's best most recent films in quite some time.

And with that I shall bid yee goodbye and will be back another time with another review.