Movie Review: The Martian (2015)

The Martian isn’t a great movie, but it’s entertaining. Whenever the movie creates tension, it basically resolves that tension in the next scene, which is a big disappointment. Still, Matt Damon is a blast to watch as a man stranded on Mars.

I respect this movie for its refusal to engage in the kind of cliched Hollywood drama that you might expect from a movie like this, but at the same time, as a result, it’s not particularly dramatic.

But it’s definitely fun to watch. It’s a little long, but it’s not structured the way you might expect, focusing only on Damon’s character. There’s a lot of stuff with NASA back on earth, and those sequences lend the movie a good amount of life. This is a clever movie, until a dumb scene at the end. It’s not an instant classic or anything, but it’s fine.

Rating: 7/10