The Martian is better than this

Rating: 4/10 (9 April 2016)

Films and stories attract people based on one of four things. The first is extraordinary story as in the Sixth Sense. The second is extraordinary characters and personalities as in say Godfather. The third is the extraordinary elements in the story as found in all folk stories like Alauddin and even in the Intouchables (the paraplegic is a new story element).
The fourth type of films are basically about the extraordinary visuals and the setting to support and justify this. Star Wars, Avatar and Baahubali belong to this category. The great environments, buildings, amazing costumes and makeups, epic battles and so on.
This was what attracted people to the original Star Wars films. In each new film Lucas tried to explore the Star Wars universe even more and showed us new people, planets, cultures and so on.
This is where this film fails completely. The planets, costumes, people all are very dull and boring. The characters too are boring. No new ship designs, no new methods of fighting, no nothing.
We never get the magical or exhilarating feeling anytime during this film. The story could've happened on a single planet with the characters flying around in planes. It actually feels like that. There is no epic feel to it.
That it garnered only $2 billion compared to Avatar's 2.8 5, years ago shows how shallow this film was.
They also didn't take advantage of the new technology available. They could've added new Alien heroes and villains, new exciting planets with strange environments and creatures.
The original looks and feels better than this. The film showcases the lack of creativity of its makers.