Movie Review: ‘The Martian’

There are four people primarily responsible for what the cinematic version of Andy Weir’s bestselling novel “The Martian” ended up being: Weir, obviously; director Ridley Scott, coming off a streak of overwrought audience displeasures; screenwriter Drew Goddard, known for throwing absurdity into his stories; and Matt Damon, known for wandering into onscreen absurdity.

Sure, the rest of the illustrious cast and crew had their hands in the matter, but there are specific things that make knowing the identity of these four individuals important. To a large extent: All of them are responsible for the joyful, satisfying entertainment that “The Martian” brings as well as the countable, though not overbearing, number of sour moments that it tries to play off.

Working backwards through the list, Damon plays Mark Watney, a character who takes on all the glib qualities of every personality Damon has ever played, though accelerated, presumably due to lack of oxygen. Watney and his crew (Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie) start the movie already on the desolate Martian landscape when a mission-ending storm heads their way. Watney is hit by a large piece of flying debris during the escape and is left behind, presumed dead.

With all the knowledge of a world-class botanist and the incredible talent or luck of MacGyver, Watney spends months managing to harvest the materials he needs to survive before NASA discovers its flub. All of the agency’s resources go toward figuring out how to get Watney back home safe and somewhat sound – it takes hundreds of days for anything NASA creates to be able to get to the red neighborhood, and Mark only has so long before his packed resources run dry.

Left without even a “Cast Away” volleyball to keep him company, Watney spends a lot of time gardening, vlogging and complaining about the music his crew mates left behind, and he’s consistently very smug about it. Watney is simultaneously among the most flippant and charismatic roles Damon has ever played, giving him a lot of moments to wittily retort to himself on camera or scream to the heavens – and Earth, in this case – when it is warranted. That is all to say: Damon was perfect for this frivolous role.

Turning to the origin of the frivolity, though, one has to acknowledge Goddard’s role as screenwriter. In adapting Weir’s novel for the big screen, Goddard shoe-horned “The Martian” with individuals, both in the stars and on home base, who are more stubborn than they’re justifiably worth. The inclusion of characters like NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) and engineer Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean) serve little purpose than to add some heavy-handed Earth drama to the whole situation.

Granted, all of the actors are fun to spend time with, but it’s the film’s conflict that ultimately drives the whole show. “The Martian” basically plays out as a series of disastrous events that rolls steadily along as Watney’s situation gets increasingly worse – and it’s all cinematically fun. Both Goddard and Scott are responsible for this part, and though the film relies too heavily on silly dialogue to roll it along, everything works in the end.

However, focusing on Scott for a minute – at no point does he try to hide how silly “The Martian” is. Scott has been making particularly muddled, reality-out-of-window-throwing movies, such as “Prometheus” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” for the better part of the last 20 years. Although this is among his best work in that period, the cheese is still present. The treatment of Watney’s whole psychological state as that of a high school know-it-all is one thing, the montage set to ABBA’s “Waterloo” is another.

That brings it all down to Weir, the original author of a book so enthralling and interesting that it made Scott a respectable director again. The film pares down the book to simpler terms – it isn’t nearly as scientifically plausible and it doesn’t flow along using conversations hosted by normal human beings quite as well.

It does, however, keep the same message.

“The Martian” is funny, thrilling and visually arresting when it needs to be, but it’s also inspiring. There are kids who will watch “The Martian,” watch Matt Damon suffer for fictional months, and still turn to mom and dad and say, “I want to be that when I grow up.” Above anything else, that’s what Weir and “The Martian” have succeeded at.

– Sebastian Torrelio