Ridley Scott back on form

Rating: 7/10 (30 September 2015)

After delivering space epics like "Alien" and sci-fi classics like "Blade Runner", Ridley Scott is back top of his game in what is his best film since Gladiator and possibly the aforementioned Alien. The Martian is not the film you might expect from Scott, the man who for the better part of the last decade has had films rife with clunkiness. I was amazed at how tonally the film never puts a foot wrong. It's pitch perfect, no pun intended. Everything in the film is juggled and distilled with a precise purpose of how it affects the mood of the piece. Nothing is extraneous. It doesn't compromise any of its many intertwining elements. It doesn't sacrifice its aims for adding humour, suspense, character definition if anything they add to it. The biological, chemical and mathematical elements crucial to the plot are captivating because they're so carefully infused and engrained with this tone Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard have created.
It's funny, intense and everything in between because it of how well-crafted the film is. For such an enormous cast, Scott gives them all their moments to shine. It's an ensemble piece in every sense of the word with Matt Damon being the anchor that holds it all together. The soundtrack is the cherry on top. You would really have to go digging, or snark up big time to find problems or flaws. It put a smile on my face that still hasn't left. A wondrous joy. Sublime stuff Mr. Scott. More where that came from, please.
P.S. Never has an Abba track been so elegiac. I never thought I would type those two words in the same sentence.