The Martian (Rated T)
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Genre: Science Fiction
Dwight’s Rating: 2.5 Stars
“Hype” — according to Merriam-Webster, it means, “to promote or publicize extravagantly”, and “promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind”, but also, to “put on, deceive”.
Many have been pumped up to see the heavily “hyped” and promoted new film “The Martian”. And with its stellar pedigree, that’s certainly not surprising. It stars the always-excellent Matt Damon. Its director is the legendary Ridley Scott (“Alien”, “Thelma & Louise”, “Gladiator”). And it comes during a time of great fascination with Mars — even premiering (coincidentally?) the same week that NASA announced the discovery of water rivulets on the surface of the “Red Planet”.
Based on the 2011 novel of the same name, the film’s premise is undeniably interesting. When astronauts blast off from Mars, they leave behind Mark Watney (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 crewmates hatch their own plan for a daring rescue mission.
“The Martian” starts off well enough. And it looks spectacular from beginning to end — from the beautiful and stunning surfaces representing Mars, the various spacecraft, the scenes from space. There’s remarkable attention to detail, and it’s simply gorgeous.
There’s also the amazing Matt Damon. For the first part of the movie, we follow Damon’s Watney through his video blogs. We see his struggles to plant and grow food, to stay warm, and to communicate with NASA to let them know he’s still alive. Damon is, as usual, charismatic and dynamic, demonstrating — much like Tom Hanks did in “Cast Away” — that he’s able to carry a film on his own.
In fact, the movie may indeed remind you of a “Cast Away on Mars”. It will likely also bring back memories of last year’s captivating “Interstellar” — which also featured Damon and Jessica Chastain — or especially 2013’s mesmerizing “Gravity”, with it’s remarkably similar astronauts-stranded-in-space-theme.
All fine films, and great company for “The Martian”. Unfortunately with “The Martian”, we get what seems like three very different films, and each attains very different levels of success.
Only the first part (perhaps first third) is actually about Damon’s character. The second third is more focused on NASA’s attempts to bring him home. As a result, the whole tone of the production shifts greatly and quite jarringly.
This portion is more of a nerdy science flick, with geek talk that I’m not sure we’re not even supposed to understand (or is it just me?). I guess it’s intended to show just how intelligent these rocket scientists truly are. We see lots of meetings, and gain insight into the internal workings and politics of NASA. However, it’s more akin to a Discovery Channel documentary, and is the Achilles’ heel of “The Martian”, enhancing the impression that you too have been stuck on the Red Planet for several Martian years (almost twice as long as Earth’s, apparently).
It’s no fault of the talented cast, which includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Donald Glover and Kristen Wiig. It’s just that heavy-handed script, which seems so very much at odds with what we’d seen up to that point.
The final third focuses on the crew that left Watney behind. This again changes the whole feel, but is much less technical, and more in line with the human struggle aspects we’d seen earlier with Damon. It’s much more successful that the NASA angle, and one suspects the elimination of the NASA component, and a concurrent integration of the two other storylines would have resulted in a slightly more cohesive story.
However, there’s an even bigger problem than this three-separate-movies-in-one issue; for the most part, “The Martian” is completely lacking in suspense. Yes, tension builds in the final few moments as the Watney rescue effort goes into full swing, but things never get near to the uncomfortable and unpredictable levels of “Interstellar” or “Gravity”. And there is never a moment when you believe there is not a possibility of a happy ending for at least Damon’s character.
So, ultimately, we have an interesting quandary in “The Martian”. Clearly we have a great cast headed by an incredibly talented actor — whom we do not get to see nearly enough. It is no doubt a great effort. But odd choices that more than likely arose out of a desire to adhere to plotlines in the source novel have resulted in a beautiful production that’s quite a bit of a snooze.
• Dwight Strachan is the host/producer of “ Morning Blend” on Guardian Radio. He is a television producer and writer, and an avid TV history and film buff. Email dwight@nasguard.com and follow him on twitter @morningblend969.
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