Lukewarm fun spaceride on mars

Rating: 6/10 (30 September 2015)

Not the best, not what I had expected, and far less than what I had hoped for.
Lots of detail missing and lots of dramatic high points omitted making Martian feel like a outta space roadtrip.
You never really feel like he is gonna die and even the problems that arise are not given he gravitas they deserve and the solutions that Watney come up with are made to feel like "any average joe" can accomplish it. In reality, what he does is an absolute feat of near future science, engineering and sheer human willpower and ingenuity.
As most book to move conversions go, this one is fairly faithful hence the 6/10.
I saw The Verge complain about the ending, but comparing the ending of the movie ending to the monologue ending in the book, the book's was far more moving. And the book's ending monologue was used for the promotional material for the movie but not in the movie itself... how dumb! In the end, they left out the almost getting lost in the sandstorm and the rover overturning, two highly tentative moments in the books.
One of the most interesting things about the book was the humor and the humor as a result of Mark's comments in his logs, most of which didn't make it into the movie. i.e when he repaired the machine that recycles water and how he does it and the way he interacts with NASA when they tell him don't touch it. (This didn't make it into the movie btw) Its not a bad movie, but it fails to be the great movie it should have been.