Movie Impressions: The Martian

I just love the 'in-universe' viral marketing campaigns that are employed in Ridley Scott's sci-fi films and that holds especially true for The Martian, the director's new venture. It thrusts us 20 years into mankind's future where humans have started manned missions to Mars, one of which housing botanist Mark Watney. But when he is left deserted on the barren planet with limited resources, he will have to use his ingenuity and botany powers to get himself back to Earth, ultimately becoming a tale of human perseverance in what felt like Man vs Wild: Mars edition. And I liked it.

Some praise must be given to Drew Goddard's screenplay given the fact that he just puts us on Mars in the very beginning and doesn't make a big deal about it. It lets the audience know that manned missions to Mars has been achieved and the mysticism of it all has started to wan a tiny bit with this one being the third mission called Ares 3. Goddard keeps the script tight and efficient as possible and superbly highlights human emotion and struggle with enough levity to not lose our interests completely, especially when it came to Watney, to which we'll come to later.

The other thing which was brilliantly executed in the script from the source material is the whole reality of the situation and actually giving weight to it. It respects the science behind it and the science, in a weird way actually heightens the film's tension just because it feels so plausible both in the problems and its solutions. Another great angle that the story explores is how Watney's situation also in a weird way actually unites the public and governments of the world into saving this guy.

I whole-heartedly believe that Ridley Scott's experience with Alien has certainly benefited the movie in presenting the scare factor. Scott does a great job in creating a hostile atmosphere just through the harsh climates and life-death situations, especially at the beginning, when Watney has to take out something out of his stomach. His direction and style is also bolstered with solid 3D. For example, there a scene when the astronauts are trapped in a dust storm and we can see large martian dust particles blowing in our faces, or showing us more field of depth in the landscapes. This is where 3d works best, environmental effects. I must also commend Scott in creating a light-hearted experience

First Vlogger on Mars...

One just cannot talk about this film and not talk about Matt Damon, and that goes quite beyond just because of the fact that he is the protagonist. Definitely, the character of Mark Watney was written well and that constitutes a rather large portion in making this character work. I mean compare this to Dr.Mann from Interstellar. Though, Matt Damon's delivery of these lines surely takes it to a new level and ultimately makes the quipping botanist very likeable. The best part for me is that the humour doesn't become irritating and actually makes sense because humour does counteract the overwhelming isolation .

It was an absolute joy watching him growing plants from faeces and going for long rover drives. The guy even makes rationing sound interesting. Damon is the one than carries the movie which is impressive when you see rest of the names in the cast. In fact I wanted this movie to only follow Watney like Moon or such examples. The audience identifies and roots for him both in the movie world and our real world which increases the significance of his stakes in our minds, which is a superb thing. Actually one of my only gripes with the story was that the ending felt a bit flat. It's not a bad ending by any means, it just felt a bit underwhelming to his story.

As for the rest of the Ares 3 crew, which consists of Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain), Rick Martinez (Michael Peña), Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan) and Alex Vogel (Aksel Hannie), they definitely gave good performances but it always felt to me like they were working with something, less. And that is my second gripe with the script, they never really explore the relationships between the crew mates. We do know that Watney is the 'clown' of the group and the others usually make fun of him calling his field, not a real science. Even though it does establish the relationships in Watney's case, we just don't see much dynamics between the rest of the crew. To know the characters better I guess you have to watch one of the viral films but since they are not part of the movie, its hard to count them.

In this case I felt that the characters back at NASA were given more things to do. Jeff Daniels plays the director of NASA, good performance I must say. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Vincent Kapoor, the head of the Mars missions, another good performance. Donald Glove plays basically the Jeff Goldblum of The Martian if we really get into labels. I mean they are all good performances but again nothing really clicks you know, especially when for a good time the movie completely shifts to Earth.

In my opinion, on NASA's side, only Sean Bean's character, Mitch Henderson had some sort of development from the story and actually made me care about him. I also liked Kristen Wiig as Annie Montrose who is NASA's spokesperson because you don't really see the 'media person' much in sci-fi movies and her position presents a fresh perspective on the situation. Plus Wiig also plays the character in a very strong, journalistic mindset which makes sense for her character, constantly butting heads with the rest of her colleagues when it came to PR. And Montrose in a way actually represents the public angle of the story, which is cool.

At the end of the day all of my gripes, really are just gripes. Ridley Scott has managed to craft a very satisfying experience and this movie is a great example of how great a director he is. And I definitely feel that he performs better in sci-fi than other genres and this movie is a great example of that also. For all the things that I relatively less enjoyed, there was each scene with Matt Damon or a landscape shot of Mars that was just classic. The Martian is an absolute visual treat, its a bit long admittedly but the situation is very captivating especially since we have already started our jouney towards manned missions to Mars. And yes sometimes it has an identity crisis between a thriller and something more light-hearted but I'm not complaining. In the end its a very enjoyable movie and also teaches you some science along the way.

Sorry for the long post....here is a bunch of Martian potatoes :)