Cosmic Confusion
Ridley Scott is one of those directors who's name almost transcends the world of cinema. He's been making movies for 50 years and his body of work includes more than one film that is considered a classic.
This is the man afterall who brought us the original Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and of course Gladiator. That's not to say however that there isn't the odd blemish on his resume though I'm sure he'd rather we all forgot about films such as GI Jane, Robin Hood and Exodus Gods and KIngs.
He is of course at the moment working on the next installment of the Alien Franchise (formerly Prometheus 2) but his most recent release was the Matt Damon starring The Martian which is the subject of this review.
Now I should be honest from the off in stating that I am not particularly a fan of Damon as an actor. Yes I love the original three Bourne films (though I am not clamouring to see him return to the role in the fifth installment) and I will concede that he is not a bad actor by any stretch of the imagination, it's just that he's not particularly my cup of tea. That said however I had seen that there are many positive reviews for The Martian online so I decided to give it a go.
The plot of the film is fairly straightforward. A team of astronauts are on a mission to Mars and ar collecting samples from the planets surface when a storm hits and they have to leave quick smart. Unfortunately Damons character Mark Watney gets taken out by flying debris and is left behind as they presume he is dead.
It wouldn't be much of a film if he was dead however and once the dust settles we discover that he is very much alive. The rest of the film sees Watney fending for himself on Mars before he manages to convey to Earth that he has survived and would of course like a ride home. This is easier said than done and over the course of the rest of the movie we see one ridiculous scientific theory after another be put forward until they finally coccoct the perfect plan to rescue their boy.
All of which leads us to the obligatory happy ending where Mark gets picked up and returns home to take up a job as a teacher to the next generation of wannabe astronauts.
Sat here writing this review I'm struggling to really put my finger on what the hell this movie is trying to be. Based on the trailer and the names involved in this project I was expecting a science fiction outing about one mans struggles in the face of seemingly life ending adversity. What I actually got was partially what I was anticipating but more than that it was some strange half hearted attempt at a space comedy of sorts.
It is in truth really confusing as it was not at all what I was expecting. The Martian has pratfalls, sly almost wink at the camera moments and even a smoking Matt Damon after he is caught out by an explosion. To be fair trying to explain it by way of text doesn't really make it very clear and to get the whole picture I would of course recommend watching it yourself, it's just for me it all just seems a little off.
Putting the comedy elements to one side another issue that this film has is that it just feels like a poor imitation of the far superior Moon which stars Sam Rockwell in possibly his greatest role to date. Now I am not saying that The Martian is a bad film, it is certainly a lot better than GI Jane, but it is just not the film I was expecting and consequently falls a little flat in more than one respect.
With all of that in mind I can only give The Martian 6 out of 10.
