“I’m still alive… Surprise!”

Andy Weir’s self-published modern version of “Robinson Crusoe in Space,” The Martian, has come to theaters thanks to Ridley Scott, Matt Damon, and almost every other actor in Hollywood. The premise is fairly simple – an astronaut is left behind on Mars to fend for himself. Before reading the book, I had heard a lot about it – and had kind of developed an idea of what the story was. After reading the book, I was surprised at how light it was, and nerdy it was. The movie, oddly embraces that lightness, and the result is a film that supplies the audience with tons of fun without ever getting too heavy.

The film opens with biologist Mark Whatney (Matt Damon) collecting samples on the Martian soil, while and his other team members Martinez (Michael Peña) and Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain) banter back and forth. Suddenly, a storm rushes in and Johansson decides to abort the mission only 18 days into it. While the Ares IV team of six are en-route to the MAV, a craft separate from their living quarters that is meant to return them to orbit, Whatney is hit with a piece of flying debris and presumed dead. In the chaos, the jettisons into space and leaves Whatney behind.

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To recap the film beyond the point would be tedious for me, and a disservice to you. Suffice to say, the world back on Earth assume Whatney to be dead, only to find out he is not. The film, like the novel, follows Nasa and JPL experts as they attempt to ameliorate Whatney’s situation, that is when they discover Whatney’s situation… which is that he’s not dead.

There are so many actors in the film it is insane, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover… and even a few more big names.  They all do a great job, developing believable characters in the fast hectic scenes they are given as the action cuts back and forth between Mars, The Ares IV crew, and Earth. Well, almost all of them… I felt Jeff Daniels kind of phoned this one in, he plays a character very similar to his role on HBO’s Newsroom. Fortunately, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong play off of his stoic performance enough to keep things funny and thrilling back on Earth. I was actually very impressed by how many of the novel’s characters script writer Drew Goddard kept in the film, instead of dumbing things down for the audience, almost everyone from the novel makes it onto the screen.

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But it’s Matt Damon’s performance that really pulls the film together, and makes the adventure worth going on. I was blown away by how charming and charismatic Matt Damon’s Mark Whatney is – because the novel version of Whatney is almost unbearably boyish. Damon give life to Weir’s hokey dialogue in ways I thought were impossible. He makes Whatney a person worth rooting for by establishing him as sarcastic and unflappable determinist. I particularly grueling self surgery scene early in the film serves to lock you into Whatney’s struggle, and it’s just one problem after another from this point on.

My biggest complaint about the film is that it doesn’t spend enough down time with Whatney on Mars, instead it moves a little too fast through his desertion that you don’t really get a chance to feel the isolation – which in a stranded island film, is pretty crucial to the plot. This also has the added effect of detaching you from Whatney emotionally. Director Ridley Scott at no time tries to develop an emotional connection between the audience and Damon. Instead we are just watching him do his thing on Mars, while his rescuers do their thing on Earth. The Martian is a film that would have benefited from a few more doses of bleakness. Whatney is trapped on Mars – yet you never once feel the psychological impact of that struggle – which is instead replaced with cheap disco jokes.

However, The Martian still ends up being one of the most fun times at the movies this year. The visuals are phenomenal, in a way that make you almost wish you were trapped on Mars too. The Martian is a perfect example of what a tight and crisp filmmaker Ridley Scott can be.

8/10