a thoughtful, exciting, crowd-pleasing movie about problem-solving

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2015)

It's great to see characters think and actively searching for a solution to a problem. That was one of the driving forces of Apollo 13 (remember, "fit that, with that, using nothing but that"), and other films dealing with survival often have that as a crux of the narrative. But The Martian isn't something where the filmmakers are trying to do a lot with a little dialog, like All is Lost or Cast Away. There are stretches without talking, but not as many as you'd expect; as the audience we're filled in often about what processes are going on and how things keep evolving (or, sometimes, breaking down miserably) in the search for how to keep astronaut/Botanist Mark Watley a) alive and b) bring him back home. It is a splendid piece of big, mainstream entertainment because it really digs in in ways that invite the audience in, while constantly keeping things entertaining and amusing.
The Martian is about a man left behind by his crew (not their fault, they genuinely thought he was a goner), and how he has to find ways to stay alive, to give himself food and, most importantly, send word to NASA that he's alive and well and can they maybe send some supplies and oh does the crew know yet? It's got a lot of science to it - as Damon says in the trailer that most have seen, "I'm going to have to science the s*** out of this" - but, more often than not, it's accessible and easy enough to understand. That is, of course, if you're not too scared by science fiction (or, as the filmmaker and actors have talked about in press interviews, science 'fact', as everything, save for us presently going to the moon with men/women on a ship, is plausible).
It's a movie about how to keep humanity in all its dimensions going through the perils of space. And, as we see, space is nothing if not indifferent; it acts, particularly on Mars, as a place where nothing really grows, storms can knock the hell out of things if items or persons aren't fastened tight, and if anything comes loose, watch out for the air and pressure to possibly kill you. On the level of threats, director Ridley Scott and especially screenwriter Drew Goddard (taking, from what I've been told, faithfully from Andy Weir's best-seller), it's high and pretty constant, and there is always that sense even when things are going well that they can break down at any time. While I never thought watching it 'Oh, maybe he won't get back or might die', as the conclusion seems clear since we are meant to like this guy and want to see him live/return, the threats and obstacles are presented expertly, with a lot of excellent pacing giving us breathing room.
The 'breathing room' part is what I mean by this being a crowd- pleasing, entertaining flick. Goddard, previously of Cabin in the Woods, is adept at giving actors funny things to say, and The Martian is just good but basic sci-fi without the wit. Some of it may seem obvious - Watley is saddled with one of the other astronauts' musical selection (disco, which he grows to kind of like in a begrudging sort of way) - but a lot of it is due to personality, from him as well as those at mission control (Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, a very funny Donald Glover, Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara are part of what is actually a giant supporting cast). These are serious scientists and people trying to do their jobs in (mostly) responsible ways, but how they talk is closer to how one might see people talk in, say, the real world; this isn't the tone-deaf wit of Prometheus, and it's funnier than what Gravity previously tried to do. I was surprised how much I was laughing during The Martian.
But it's deep down a drama, and led by Matt Damon in a performance that makes this director-writer-actor triangle complete for the audience. He has to hold down major chunks of the film, albeit there is a lot with NASA and the other ship with Chastain and so on, and without making this man believable in his serious scientific intellect, his ways of making things light (or cursing, which is interesting that they get away with a PG-13 here by the way through bleeps), and real pathos, the movie won't work, or nearly as well. He delivers up to what the script asks, and it, plus Scott's visual scope and control of the pacing, make this an exceptional Hollywood movie. We get to see how process works in a crisis, and that's always character-building and interesting (when written well) in a movie; that it's at this level of A-list makes The Martian a special film, and one of Scott's best.