THE MARTIAN Movie Review
The Martian is an easy movie to describe: Matt Damon gets stuck on Mars and has to find a way home. That simplicity actually does a disservice to the movie, and it probably gets a lot of people lining this film up with Gravity, a movie that wants to be a roller coaster ride above everything else. The Martian, simply, is one of the best movies of 2015.
The film has three levels: Matt Damon’s Mark Watney trying to figure out how to survive on Mars, NASA on Earth trying to figure out how to save Watney and Jessica Chastain’s Hermes crew, who left Watney behind accidentally, dealing with both things (there’s more, but I don’t want to spoil it). Similarly, there are three reasons why this movie works so well.
First, this is an incredibly confident movie. This is not an easy movie to make. You have three levels of stuff going on, you have entire sections of the movie following one guy alone on Mars and you have to make science talk both entertaining and informative. If any of those three things stumbles the movie would slowly start to unravel. But somehow, someway, Ridley Scott is able to pull it all together and absolutely nail this film. Is this really the same Scott who directed Exodus and Prometheus? This movie is so sure of every scene and every action and every choice that it makes this movie look easy to make. All you have to do is look at the portrayal of Mars here, it’s both fantastic and boring and the same time. It’s the Red Planet for sure, with dust and rocks and nothing else all over the place, but it looks and feels amazing.
The second level is Drew Goddard’s incredible script, which is both smart and funny (taking its cues from Andy Weir’s smart and funny book). Everything is laid out incredibly clear. You’re always certain of the stakes, you always know what the next problem is and how these smart characters are going to tackle them. This is a movie that could have easily veered into robotic engineering talk with no emotions involved, but Goddard’s script embeds emotion into these people, it feels like these characters are actual human beings.
The final level is the insane cast. Damon probably puts in his best performance ever here. He always has this affable everyman quality that endears him to people, but he’s also incredibly intelligent. All of this comes across in his Watney. You want to root for him, you feel for him and when he explains all the science shit he’s doing in English you get it. Many sections of this movie rely on him acting alone on Mars, reacting to the situation he’s in. That’s not easy, but Damon makes it look easy. He’s incredible.
The rest of the cast is highly effective. Jeff Daniels’ NASA director and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s mission director get the most screen time to shine. Daniels’ character is an easy one to turn into a bad guy and Daniels gets pretty close sometimes, but he pulls him back enough where you realize he’s trying to make the best decision for everyone involved. Also, he looks burned out by this entire situation, which works. Ejiofor’s character is almost an Earth-foil to Damon’s Watney. He’s persistent and smart, and while he starts out feeling like an opportunistic asshole you see that he just has a dream he’s chasing and come to adore him a little.
The rest of the cast sounds like some fantasy league of actors, and they’re all quite good: Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover, Sebastian Stan, Kate Mara, Mackenzie Davis, Michael Pena, Sean Bean (who gets a Lord of the Rings joke!) and more.
I’ve talked a little about how smart and funny this movie is, but I don’t think I’ve fully captured how it feels. You know the best teacher you’ve ever had? The one who was able to take complex information, simplify it and deliver it in an entertaining way? And then they’d be able to fire off hilarious jokes every once in a while to relax your mind so they could stuff more in there? That’s what The Martian feels like.
It comes with one more special ingredient that makes this movie tick though: optimism. The Martian refuses to ever get cynical, which is a feat considering the insane shit that happens to the people in this movie. It has a natural hope that believes in the greatness of people and the things we can achieve if we actually put our heads together for the greater good. Oddly, this could be the most unbelievable thing about the movie if you look at the landscape of the world today. Gravity and Interstellar were also movies about having hope in trying circumstances and how you should never give up, but neither of them reach the heights that The Martian does.
The Martian isn’t only one of the smartest movies of the year, it’s not only one of the funniest movies of the year, it’s the most optimistic and affirming movies of the year. It’s uplifting without being preachy, it’s hopeful without feeling contrived or saccharine, it’s an amazing accomplishment. The Martian is one of the best movies of the year, and easily the best movie about Mars ever.
Originally published at www.swiftfilm.com.
