Close to marsvelous!

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2015)

Ridley Scott's "The Martian" is pretty much a marginally great movie, but I would rather insert it in the "marginally really good movie" category. This sci-fi light comedy focuses on astronaut Mark Watney. Poor Mark was left for dead in Mars by his fellow astronaut crew members when a mission to Mars had an accidental explosion. However, NASA eventually found a mark that revealed that Mark is really alive, and now their challenger, I mean challenging mission is to bring Mark back safely. A good chunk of "The Martian" resembles the "Castaway" makeup: a man stranded alone and fighting for not just physical survival but psychological survival; differences: one is an island, and the other one is in a planet, and also one talks to a volleyball named Wilson, and the other one talks to a video screen named... wait Mark did not give the video screen a name, maybe he should have called it Screenie. Anyways, Scott's directorial vision is out-of- this-world and is deservant of Best Director nomination love; it really moved me how he was able to incorporate disco music in a sci-fi flick. Drew Goddard's screenplay worked on the comedic fare, but lost me a bit with the way-too-much scientific technical verbose. Matt Damon was excellent as Watney. The supporting acting was also not spaced-out in acting proficiency; which included outstanding work from Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, and Sean Bean. You Should Be Dancing, I mean seeing "The Martian"; there is some really cool hot (yes, I am disco oxymoron)stuff for you to discover. **** Good