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Matt Damon is Lost in Space in The Martian |
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Commander
Melissa Lewis), Jeff Daniels (Teddy Sanders), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose),
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Sean Bean (Mitch Henderson), Michael Peña
(Major Rick Martinez), Kate Mara (Beth Johansson), Sebastian Stan (Dr Chris
Beck), Aksel Hennie (Dr Alex Vogel), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Donald
Glover (Rich Purnell), Benedict Wong (Bruce Ng)
Imagine being abandoned somewhere really difficult to get
out of. Now how about being abandoned somewhere where it’s literally impossible
to escape? Well you can’t get much more impossible than Mars, a place so bloody
difficult it doesn’t even supply you with such luxuries as oxygen, water or
food. But that’s exactly what happens to astronaut Mark Watney.
Part of the first manned mission to Mars, Watney (Matt
Damon) is struck by debris and presumed killed after a storm forces the crew to
abandon their planet. With no one on Earth aware he is alive, Watney faces huge
difficulties: the next Mars mission isn’t for four years, and will land over 2,000
miles away. He has only enough food for at best a couple of years, and his Mars
Rover can only travel 70 miles before it needs to be recharged. Fortunately,
Watney (as well as being incredibly inventive) is a botanist – and works out a
complex improvised farm in the base to grow potatoes (the only potential crop
he has) as well beginning to modify the Rover to drive to the next mission site
in four years. But things change when NASA (after holding his funeral) spot his
movements via satellite – and now the race is on to organise a rescue mission.
The Martian perfectly
works out what we find appealing about survivor stories: a charming, easy to
relate to, protagonist who inspires with his never-ending MacGyver-ish invention. The best sequences by far focus on this, as
Watney uses whatever he has available, from radioactive waste to his own shit,
to try and save his life. There is something hugely compelling about seeing
such inspiration in the face of adversity – perhaps because you want to believe
“heck that’s what I would do…”
The first half of the film is crammed with these moments,
made even more enjoyable by Watney’s off-the-wall, amusing commentary on events
via video diary. Watney never succumbs to despair but instead constantly puts
as positive as possible a spin on his situation, aware that opening the door to
despair is the road to the end. A lot of this works so well because of Matt
Damon’s terrific performance in the lead role. It’s no easy thing basically
holding the screen entirely by yourself, but Damon does an amazing job here.
He’s not just funny and engaging, but he also subtly touches on deep inner
feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Scott understands all this and shoots most of the sequences
with Watney with a low-key, calm but technically assured simplicity. He lets
the action here largely speak for itself, and shows a better ear for comedy
than I think many people thought him capable of. He also uses Watney’s “suit
cam” and the video diary format to constantly shake up the visuals and allow us
to see Watney’s actions and decisions from different perspectives. His mastery
of the sweeping epic comes into its own when the camera swoops over Martian
panoramas, making the hostile red planet look unbelievably beautiful.
It’s easy to see why NASA supported this film so strongly,
as the organisation comes out of this impossibly well. This is essentially a
fictionalised retelling of Apollo 13,
with the astronauts surviving above, while the ingenious techies below work
miracles to first communicate with, and then devise a rescue mission, for
Watney. The film is deeply in love with NASA – despite some personality
clashes, the NASA characters are all shown to be highly intelligent,
compassionate people. Even “the suit”, Director Sanders (played with a square
jawed patience by Jeff Daniels), is basically a humanitarian who wants to
preserve human life (and is cool enough to have a brilliant Lord of the Rings gag).
Despite this, the struggles of the various bigwigs at NASA to
save Watney are slightly less interesting than the opening half of the film
based around Watney’s struggles to survive. Perhaps because, well done as it
is, we’ve seen this sort of stuff before, done better – not least in Apollo 13 – and partly because what NASA
is trying to do is not quite clearly explained in layman’s terms. Think of the
simple brilliance of Apollo 13 when
the engineers need to create a filter using only what the astronauts have on
the ship: it’s easy to understand, clear, brilliant and gripping. Comparative
scenes in this film just don’t land as quickly.
The film also struggles as events and twists in the midway
part of the movie lead to Watney losing a lot his agency. Since most of the
film’s unique enjoyment is seeing Watney conquer his environment, and gain
mastery of the rotten hand that fate has dealt him, as soon as that element is
removed and Watney turns into more of a man in distress, the film struggles to
maintain its unique interest. It makes the second half of the film more
conventional (Damon is noticeably in this much less, considering how much he
dominates the first half) and also ends up comparing unfavourably with other,
better films (sorry I mean Apollo 13
again…)
But The Martian is
crammed with good lines, fine jokes and some good performances – even if some
of the characters seem a bit sketchily drawn. Benedict Wong is very good as
NASA’s top techno bod. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean do well as the most
clearly sympathetic senior NASA bods. Up in space, the rest of the crew are
very lightly sketched, but Jessica Chastain gives a fine sense of authority to
the Mission Commander. But make no mistake this is Damon’s movie – and he
dominates both the audience’s interest and the film’s.
The Martian is a
very well made, intelligent crowd-pleaser. It’s not a classic – and it’s
slightly in the shadow of better movies – but it’s brilliantly put together and
hugely engaging. The second half of the story is less compelling and more
conventional than the first, but there is more than enough invention and
enjoyment there for you to want to come back and see it again.
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