The Martian

It isn’t essentially that perfect space journey thriller which convinces you completely. The Martian from director Ridley Scott ultimately is a survival story of a cool headed astronaut and why it works for you is because of the sort of coolness the hero showcases on screen. With the screenplay slightly missing the soulful presentation of the possible emotional shift of the character, The Martian still has enough in abundance to keep you occupied with fun and tension.

Astronauts, part of the Ares 3 mission is doing the researches in Mars and an unexpected storm forces them to leave the planet. During the evacuation process a team member Mark Watney met with an accident and the crew had to leave assuming Mark was dead. Surprisingly the guy was alive and the movie discusses the struggle he had to stay alive and the task NASA undertook to bring him back.

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Mr. Scott quickly gets into the action without much of a dramatic foreplay to the idea. As I said in the beginning, it is the coolness in the attitude of Mark Watney that works in favor of the movie. The survival factor and his determination aspects are definitely there in the presentation, but the emphasis is more on the attitude of his towards the unimaginable situation in which he is right now. The story has fair enough scientific logic I guess to make most of the decisions made by the entities in the film look logically correct on screen (I am not an expert and in the coming days you may see lots of articles explaining the highs and lows of The Martians space theory). It may sound crazy how he grows food inside the mission remains. But Drew Goddard explains it all in a sensible and funny style to us. I don’t know whether they have scientific proofs on how all that steps of rescuing Mark gains sensibility, but on screen it definitely looked possible.

Matt Damon easily transforms himself to Mark Watney with all the coolness. The emotional breakdown in a scene where he finally sees the chance of going back was really moving. Unlike Nolan, Ridley Scott allowed Jessica Chastain to go to the outer space and the actress was good in her character. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor was another notable performer among the cast who performed really well.

Technically, Ridley Scott keeps his movie really rich. The outstanding view of Mars surface and the deterministic attitude of the hero were visualized skilfully by the director. The only slight glitch is in the screenplay which doesn’t give much of a relevance to the alarming truth of the situation. The audience isn’t that aware of the inner trauma of the astronaut and only towards the end of the movie Goddard’s screenplay thinks about moving us emotionally. I must say that he succeeded in doing that in the last quarter. Cinematography was nice and so was the background score. Uncompromised visual effects makes the proceedings look spectacularly real on screen.

So to sum it up, I won’t say it is a “Cast Away” set in space. It is more of an enthusiastic entertainer rather than a heart warming survival story. But still the movie is worth spending your money and time. The rating for The Martian is 3.5/5.

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Final Thoughts

I won’t say it is a “Cast Away” set in space. It is more of an enthusiastic entertainer rather than a heart warming survival story.

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Green: Recommended Content

Orange: The In-Between Ones

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By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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