I would like The Martian more if it wasn’t so very similar to Gravity. I would also like it more if it weren’t the cinematic equivalent of Coldplay, technically proficient, but the emotion seems to have been generated by a computer program.
Both have astronauts marooned in deep space after bad ‘space weather’, asteroids and dust storms respectively, and both have the stranded astronaut desperately trying to find an unlikely way home before their run out of oxygen.
The difference is that Watney (Matt Damon) spends an incredibly long period of time living solo on the red planet thanks to his bare wit and a fair degree of luck.
In fact the action is really once NASA realise they left one behind, having presumed him dead, and must red facedly confront the media and inform them. Even more reluctantly when they must tell Captain Lewis (Jessica Chastain) and crew who are mid transit on the long route home.
Matt Damon works hard using a mix of determination and gallows humour to maintain our interest in the long sections where he is alone onscreen, Chastain and Michael Pena muck in from afar on the shuttle, and Jeff Daniels runs proceedings in NASA on home soil, aided and abetted by many fine character actors.
The Martian is brilliantly executed and flawlessly presented, thanks to the standard excellence of Ridley Scott, but again I cannot help but think this feels like a product, more an example of efficiency and proficiency than love and creativity. This is what stands between it and the greatness of Gravity. This is what keeps it from being considered as one of the films of 2015, even though it will ultimately be seen in the top bracket.
Final Rating – 8 / 10. The Martian is far too good to pass over or pay lip service to, but not genuine enough to grant greatness.
