Summary:
After an accident, an astronaut is stranded on Mars and has to figure out a way to survive.
My Thoughts:
I read Andy Weir’s novel before seeing this film and believed it would make for an excellent movie. The story is fast paced and exciting, and the characters are humorous and likeable, but the coolest thing about this story was that Andy Weir based a large part of this story on scientific facts and evidence; he used actual research and data to construct the scenarios that Mark Watney (Matt Damon, “Saving Private Ryan”) would need to survive. I watched an interview with Wier where he stated that he went so far as to figure out when the flight would’ve had to have launched, he figured out the amount of water it would take to grow all the potatoes, even calculated the trajectory of the spacecraft in this story, all in the name of realism. There were some things that he had to fudge for the sake of story (for example; the winds of the storm at the beginning of this movie would’ve never been strong enough to actually lift Mark off the ground), but by and large Weir tried to ground his science fiction in science. As a result, we get a space epic that feels slightly more believable and attainable than other science fiction movies such as, say, “Interstellar”.
Mark Watney: Space Pirate
On a manned mission to Mars, an accident forces Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”) to leave behind Mark Watney, whom she assumes is dead. Among the other members of the crew are Rick Martinez (Michael Pena, “Ant Man”), Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara, "Chappaquiddick”), Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan, "Captain America: Civil War”), and Alex Vogel (Anskel Hennie, “The Cloverfield Paradox”). Back on Mars we learn that Watney survived the accident, and he begins preparations to ensure his survival. On Earth, Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels, “Looper”), the director of NASA, works with his team to try to figure out a way to bring Mark home. Among Sanders’ team are Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean, “Silent Hill”), Annie Montrose (Kristen Wigg, “The Skeleton Twins”), Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong, "Annihilation”), Rich Purnell (Donald Glover, "Solo: A Star Wars Story”), and Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis, "Tully”). Together, all of these people must figure out a way to bring Mark home.
First, I really liked the writing for this movie. Both the novel and this movie have a similar tone of being rather light-hearted; even though some of the situations the characters find themselves in can be rather dire. Most of the reason for that is because we see a lot of the film from Mark’s perspective, and Mark is a very positive character. Even from the very beginning, we see Mark’s work ethic and perseverance come into play. As soon as he gets back inside the HAB and assesses his situation, he pulls himself together and gets to work again. Mark’s character is also written in a way that’s slightly sardonic; many of his lines have humorous connotations and Matt Damon portrays him in a way that makes Mark very relatable and likeable (Matt Damon was apparently so funny that the Golden Globes thought this film deserved to be nominated as a comedy instead of a drama). But beyond just the writing of Mark’s character, the situations and problems that Mark face are always changing and always getting more intense. While this movie is quite long (almost two and a half hours), it moves at a rather quick pace. That’s because the dialogue is quick and snappy, and the situations are easy to understand- both in terms of what’s happening and what the consequences are- and the film is constantly moving forward and making progress. It’s easy to follow the progress of NASA, Mark, and Lewis and co because the film always lets you know exactly what’s going on without completely over explaining every little detail. There’s also a surprising amount of emotion that goes into this film. Sometimes I feel like the best science fiction movies can come off as cold and calculated (“2001: A Space Odyssey”), but this film does a good job of highlighting the human element of the genre, and as a result, even if we have a vague idea of how the problems will revolve themselves, the situations are still intense.
The special effects and production design in this movie are absolutely incredible. I would venture to guess that a majority of the shots in this film needed at least some postproduction work as far as special effects go, and there were never any shots that stuck out as poorly developed or put together. In fact, this has got to be one of the more polished visual effects extravaganzas I’ve seen in recent memory. Everything from the sweeping landscapes to the digital readouts in the HAB looked really great and incredibly convincing. Funnily enough, I heard that Matt Damon’s beard near the end of this movie was CGI, and you never heard anybody complain about that- but somehow “Justice League” couldn’t remove a mustache from Superman’s upper lip without looking absolutely horrendous.
There were a lot of great performances in this film, and there are so many big name actors that this is pretty much an ensemble film. Matt Damon steals the show as Mark Watney, though it’s with his character that we spend the most amount of time. The other main standouts were Jessica Chastain as Commander Lewis, and Jeff Daniels as Teddy Sanders.
Verdict:
This is a very solid sci fi film; one that certainly stands out above the crowd as a more memorable entry into the genre. Spellbinding visual effects, wonderful performances, and a hilarious and fast-paced script make for a very enjoyable and epic journey over the surface of Mars. I absolutely recommend this movie; it’s one that I think almost everyone will enjoy.
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