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THE MARTIAN (2015) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

THE martian (2015) movie

Genre | Science Fiction

Classification | M

Running time | 144 minutes

Released | 30 September 2015

cast

Matt Damon ... Mark Watney
Jessica Chastain ... Melissa Lewis
Kristen Wiig ... Annie Montrose
Jeff Daniels ... Teddy Sanders
Michael Peña ... Rick Martinez
Sean Bean ... Mitch Henderson
Kate Mara ... Beth Johanssen
Sebastian Stan ... Chris Beck
Aksel Hennie ... Alex Vogel
Chiwetel Ejiofor ... Vincent Kapoor
Benedict Wong ... Bruce Ng
Mackenzie Davis ... Mindy Park
Donald Glover ... Rich Purnell

director

Ridley Scott

writer

Drew Goddard ... (screenplay by)

Andy Weir ... (based on the novel by)

cinematographer

Dariusz Wolski

music

Harry Gregson-Williams

film editor

Pietro Scalia

box office result

Worldwide $630,161,890

Australia $19,601,155

North America $228,433,663

the best dialogue

Mark Watney: I've been thinking about laws on Mars. There's an international treaty saying that no country can lay claim to anything that's not on Earth. By another treaty if you're not in any country's territory, maritime law aplies. So Mars is international waters. Now, NASA is an American non-military organization, it owns the Hab. But the second I walk outside I'm in international waters. So Here's the cool part. I'm about to leave for the Schiaparelli Crater where I'm going to commandeer the Ares IV lander. Nobody explicitly gave me permission to do this, and they can't until I'm on board the Ares IV. So I'm going to be taking a craft over in international waters without permission, which by definition... makes me a pirate. Mark Watney: Space Pirate.

Mark Watney: I've got to make a lot more water. The good thing is, I know the recipe: You take hydrogen, you add oxygen, and you burn. Now, I have hundreds of liters of unused hydrazine at the MDV. If I run the hydrazine over an iridium catalyst, it'll separate into N2 and H2. And then if I just direct the hydrogen into a small area and burn it. Luckily, in the history of humanity, nothing bad has ever happened from lighting hydrogen on fire.

Mark Watney: Fuck you Mars.

THE MARTIAN (2015) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE MARTIAN (2015) STORY SYNOPSIS

When astronauts blast off from the planet Mars, they leave behind Mark Watney (Matt Damon), presumed dead after a fierce storm. With only a meager amount of supplies, the stranded visitor must utilize his wits and spirit to find a way to survive on the hostile planet. Meanwhile, back on Earth, members of NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring him home, while his crew mates hatch their own plan for a daring rescue mission.

THE MARTIAN (2015) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 29 September 2015
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

THE MARTIAN is a return to form for Ridley Scott, demonstrating once again how comfortable the veteran British Director is at working in the science fiction genre. Unlike his classic films sci-fi features ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER or the more recent but critically-maligned PROMETHEUS, THE MARTIAN deals with humanity's current space exploration capacity and what a manned mission to Mars might look like and what would be needed to rescue a stranded astronaut. In this case, the astronaut happens to be Matt Damon, who plays the central character in a 21st Century update of ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS. The film is a great adventure with a talented cast and ticks all the boxes to be both a critical and financial success among movie-goers.

Based on Andy Weir's book of the same name, Scott and Screenwriter Drew Goddard waste no time getting the viewer into the film's action. The film opens in the midstream of the Martian landscape just as the crew of the Mars Ares III mission are engulfed in a storm that threatens to strand them on the planet. Mission Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) orders the crew to their escape ship, but the violent winds cause a piece of equipment to break free, skewering Matt Damon's Mark Watney in the process. With his spacesuit bio-sensors wrecked and the other members of his team unable to locate him in the storm, Commander Lewis and the crew believe Watney to be dead.

Breaking the news to the world that an astronaut has been lost sees Goddard and Scott get their supporting players, all of whom are NASA support staff, into the film's story quite early in the piece. Among them, Jeff Daniels is NASA boss Teddy Sanders and Chiwetel Ejiofor is Mission Director Venkata Kapoor are the stand-outs, playing characters with different levels of emotional engagement in the recovery of Damon’s Watney. Rounding out the support team are Sean Bean, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover and Mackenzie Davis. Throughout the film, the action cuts back and forth between Watney's efforts to prolong his supplies long enough for a rescue mission and NASA's efforts to mount the mission.

Upon NASA discovering Watney is alive and re-establishing contact with him, the film steps up a gear as attempts to rescue him escalate. After a failed effort with a hastily put-together US supply probe, the Chinese enter the fray, offering their hitherto super-secret rocket to rescue Watney. At the same time, the crew of the Ares III re-enter the story, as Mission Control finally advises them that their colleague is alive back on Mars. The news that Watney is alive allows Jessica Chastain and her crew, among them Michael Pena, Kate Mara & Sebastian Stan in supporting roles, to take an active role in helping with their efforts to rescue their crewmate.

THE MARTIAN's finale is gripping stuff, as the Ares III and her crew return to Mars in an effort to get Watney back. As was the case in 2013 with GRAVITY and 2014 with INTERSTELLAR, THE MARTIAN treats the viewer to a kind of scientific authenticity by incorporating known elements of space travel with some dazzling zero-gravity work. It's not exactly hard science, but it harkens back to the more realistic approach that Scott took when he filmed ALIEN back in the late 1970s, where everything that is seen by the camera looks like it actually does something. Scott's Production Designer Arthur Max, who has worked with the Director since G.I. JANE, does an outstanding job at making the space travel technology look both sleek and functional. Scott, who has always worked hard to create "worlds" for his films, takes full advantage of the design work, showing costumes, ship details and the Martian habitat module, in which Watney survives for the first part of the film, up close; giving the viewer the sense at times they are watching a documentary and not a feature film. Damon’s direct-to-camera acting adds to the documentary feel, as his actions and reactions are captured on the videolog he completes as part of his Mission.

THE MARTIAN is very much a “Big Screen” feature film and the addition of 3-D, especially for the space scenes, is well worth the ticket premium to view the film in that format. While THE MARTIAN plays more broadly than either of its immediate forebears in GRAVITY or INTERSTELLAR, it is actually a better piece of entertainment that either of those two films because it focusses solely on Watney’s rescue and doesn’t try to complicate its story with ponderings on humanity’s place in the universe or religious symbolism. It’s great to see Ridley Scott lift this film a notch above last year’s EXODUS and even better to watch a film from him that tells another exciting story in a genre to which he has contributed so significantly.