Life discovered on Mars!!....... Human life

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2015)

*** Contains Spoilers****** Gravity was great! Wait,Â…Â…. this wasn't Gravity. But I'm sure that "The Martian" will get comparisons to Gravity in most every forthcoming review. It's almost as if someone said, "OK Gravity was a huge success, so let's make another lost in space movie to make some money on this year!" OK, notwithstanding that bit of cynicism, the Martian is a pretty good overall family movie with some really spectacular space special effects as one would expect in the "Post Gravity" era of movie making. I saw the movie in 3D to maximize the experience of these types of effects and it was worth it just from that aspect. The story is a feel good rescue story that doesn't leave you wondering about the outcome. So it's fairly predictable and you won't be blown away by any huge plot twists. The redeeming factor of the story is more of being able to witness the process of how the cast thought about, and went about solving the problems they encountered. It was interesting to think about some of difficulty of the math involved under such immense pressure of survival, and the prospect of trying to grow plants with the resources available. Also intriguing to me was imagining oneself in the situation of "the only human" on an entire planet. So from this standpoint it was a bit of an intellectual thrill, if not so much a mindless action thriller. The Martian fell short in the acting and connecting emotionally for me. For example, Damon seemed a bit too robotic and unemotional about his dreadful situation. Throughout the movie, he did entertain with various hilarious one liners, but you never sensed the deep fear and dread that one would feel in that situation from him. Also, when the rest of the crew learned of Damon's character still being alive, there was a fairly non-inspiring response. This would normally be a very traumatic news event to people that had feared his death, and been in such a long journey to another planet with him. More powerful displays of raw emotion and fear throughout would have served to draw in more concern and built a stronger connection to the audience. Also, the beginning of the movie starts quite quickly with the peril of a Martian storm that threatens the mission in progress. More time prior to this to develop the character of Damon and others would have helped as well to bring in a connection from the audience. You didn't get a chance to care too much for any of the crew, as we didn't know much about them, their personalities, family connections etc. prior to the storm's arrival. All in all I would recommend seeing this movie, I'll give it a 7/10. Perhaps a twist or two, and a bit more character development would have made it an 8 plus for me.