The Martian

Special treat today: I saw “The Martian” which came out not that long ago, so I will review it tonight. Out from the blackness comes something we thought we might never see again: a Ridley Scott movie that people will actually like.

“The Martian,” Scott’s adaptation of the best-selling book by Andy Weir, is a knockabout space adventure. Henry Barnes stated in his review, “A wide-eyed tribute to human ingenuity that packs enough snark to pull itself out of the black hole of earnestness, even if its fuel runs out partway through.”

Matt Damon stars as astronaut Mark Watney, left for dead on Mars after his crew is forced to evacuate from a dust storm. Stranded with only enough food and water to last a month, he’ll have to utilize his science thinking in the situation to survive. He gets to work: burning hydrogen to make water, rationing his remaining food stocks and growing more by terra-forming Mars with his own fecal matter. Back on earth, a sharp-eyed satellite controller, played by Mackenzie Davis, notices Watney’s movement and calls his superiors – A-type NASA suits played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, musician Jeff Daniels and the hot Kristen Wiig. They’ll argue with the moral problem of whether or not to tell the rest of Watney’s crew, led by the hot Jessica Chastain’s mission commander, that he’s still alive and risk them turning around to help him.

Barnes said that, “Weir is a space nut who once designed software to plot a successful course to the red planet and The Martian is sci-fi leaning heavy on the science. His book - self-published before it became a hit on Kindle, then stormed the best-seller charts – is research-heavy. It doesn’t spare his readers any of the cosmic nuts and bolts.” Every single one of the specialist word lists makes it into Drew Goddard’s script, but the same goes for Watney’s sarcastic streak, delivered in some style by Damon. Barnes said, “He’s a tough character to pilot, this sceptical geek know-it-all, but Damon has the charm and wit to land some tricky one-liners.”

A galaxy of stars orbit Damon with not that much to do. Ares III, Watney’s crew’s ship, is home to a pilot (Michael Peña), a navigator (Kate Mara) and a chemist (Aksel Hennie), but they’re all, despite their talents, rather ordinary. Back on Earth Wiig’s PR specialist is sort of sharp, Ejiofor’s mission controller is a bit nice and Daniels’ NASA boss is a bit nasty. Even Watney, supposedly a symbol of hope for all humanity in the final act, is – once the jokes wear off – pretty dull. Still, Scott has a lightness of touch that was absent from “The Martian’s” closest companion: Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.” Barnes said, “That theory-heavy behemoth, which also starred Chastain and Damon, makes Scott’s film feel light as air.”

With “Alien,” Scott went to space and found horror. With “Prometheus” he came back after recovering from something horrible (Barnes mentioned, “Although, interestingly, the space suits in that wonky misadventure and this new film are very similar”). “The Martian” floats between them. It is not fantastic, in either sense, but it does show-off a sense of play. For a survival flick it’s actually pretty light on risk (Barnes said, “You never really believe that the Jordanian desert, where the film was shot, is Mars”), but it’s not short of thrills.

It’s also a great advantage for NASA. Space exploration here is nothing but noble, exciting and worthwhile. Barnes concluded, “Mark Watney, urging his space rover along through the plains of the Acidala Planitia, is pursuing a new manifest destiny. A sucrose coda (added, unnecessarily, to book’s matter-of-fact finale) suggests that we’d be fools not to follow him.”

If you haven’t been able to go out to the theater to watch this movie, I would strongly recommend everyone to go out and see it. It’s not like last year’s “Interstellar,” which was about three hours. You will get into it really fast and you will be rooting for Watney from beginning to end because you want him to be rescued and get back to Earth. I’m not going to spoil anything, but definitely see this one, it’s worth it.

Stay tuned tomorrow when I conclude “Fly-a-thon.”