A captivating film that inspires us to dream big and ignore the cynics

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2015)

After a summer of slim picking for moviegoers, The Martian (dir. Ridley Scott) represents a breath of fresh air at odds with the film's setting. It returns us to space for the third time in as many years, and proves the stronger of the thrilling Gravity (2013) and the sometimes mystifying Interstellar (2014).
Set in a not-too-distant future where humans have launched manned missions to Mars, we soon find our hero, astronaut and botanist Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) left behind on the Red Planet in the chaos of a brutal windstorm, his mission team traveling home and presuming him dead. Incommunicado and alone, Damon is left with only scarce resources and his own ingenuity to survive in a hostile environment.
The atmosphere can be heart-pounding, and the visuals are spectacular. But it isn't all action â€“ in fact there's surprising humour â€“ and it's at those times that the considerable strength of the cast is allowed to shine. Damon is notably supported by Jessica Chastain (Interstellar, Zero Dark Thirty), Kate Mara (House of Cards), and flight director Sean Bean, whose fans will delight in a winking Lord of the Rings reference â€“ and also in his not adding to his extensive personal death reel.
It's Ridley Scott at his finest. And it's a movie we need. Like Apollo 13 a generation before it, it inspires confidence in human collaboration, resourcefulness, and scientific exploration at a time when we face formidable global challenges of our own but popular discourse remains dominated by the parochial. One of the best outcomes of The Martian would be to prompt us to dream big once more and ignore the cynicism that too often passes for wisdom.
Though the movie comes in about 20 minutes too long, at 141 minutes, I give it an unreserved recommendation.