that boy's alive. and we're gonna get him the hell out of there

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2015)

This movie is about three brothers sent to Mars. Two die, and one, James Francis Ryan, is left stranded. NASA doesn't want to have to tell the mother it lost all three of her sons so it plans a dangerous rescue mission to save Ryan and bring him home. Well not exactly.
The actor and premise may bring back memories of a certain Spielberg film but this movie is actually more like a combination of Cast Away and Apollo 13. (Others have mentioned this.) Throw in a bit of Gravity, Mission To Mars, and Interstellar you have The Martian.
Does the feeling of familiarity make this movie bad? In this case, definitely not. Fortunately the Mars setting provides enough new elements to make this film interesting. The science is believable and, according to real scientists, fairly accurate. Matt Damon brings his usual likable, everyman charm.
Thinking of films about Mars released over the past couple decades like Mission To Mars, Red Planet, Ghost of Mars, and Mars Needs Moms, this movie is easily the best movie about Mars since Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall. Still, I can't shake the feeling that Ridley Scott must've watched Matt Damon's part in Interstellar and thought to himself, "Gee, I could turn this into a 2-hour movie" and did. But whatever the inspiration, this film was well done.