Intense but Fun Ride

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2015)

"The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott)" is pretty good overall, but riddled with enough flaws you want to warn people about.
It is occasionally more intense than pleasurable. (For example, Matt Damon's injured astronaut performing desperate surgery on himself. We get prolonged looks at the bleeding gut.). Also, it is often a tepid music video, particularly during the schmaltzy sequence when David Bowie's "Starman" is heard.
The propaganda elements are also all over the place. The head of NASA (played by Jeff Daniels) actually cares about whether a lone astronaut stranded on Mars lives or not. What a nice guy. Also, nearly every woman working at NASA is really hot. I also get a kick out of the plot turn where an odd, reclusive wonder kind uses a supercomputer to verify a gravity assist algorithm--and he's the only person at NASA who had thought of using what would seem to be a common maneuver.
The science is interesting but dumb in crucial places. What confuses me the most is how initially it takes hours to communicate to Astronaut Matt Damon on Mars, when later that communication is instantaneous. (As evident by the Times Square euphoria.) Did Matt build a new Internet?
However...the good side is The Martian shows us a doomed character using his wits to postpone his fate. There is also a lot of admirable teamwork, and resistance to authority when necessary.
The acting is very good. Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain really show up. They both are larger than life; just what we expect in movie stars. (But isn't Matt Damon a bit old to be an astronaut assigned a Mars mission?) I wasn't keen on Ridley Scott's direction, but the Martian landscape is always enjoyable.
If you can handle the shocks and intensity of a modern US movie, you will like this. Otherwise, avoid.