Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2015)

The plot of THE MARTIAN, unlike SPECTRE's, is not a closely guarded secret. We know the storyline: space botanist Matt Damon is left for dead on Mars when his fellow astronauts evacuate during a vicious storm. But Matt's not dead. Will he survive? Will they they rescue him?
You kind of know the answer to these key questions, so director Ridley Scott has to work extra hard to generate suspense. Matt's survival skills are given some stringent challenges, and a lot can (and does) go wrong with the rescue mission. Damon's powerful screen presence manages to hold our interest during the Robinson Crusoe parts of the story - even better, I would say, than Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY, one of the many films that are unavoidably echoed here (GRAVITY being the most obvious).
Despite all the CGI I found Ridley Scott's Mars less visually enthralling than Paul Verhoeven's in the original TOTAL RECALL; it looks like (which it is) a rose-tinted version of the Jordan valleys where LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was filmed. The space scenes are awesome and possess some of the pure magic of Kubrick's 2001. Hugely enjoyable as THE MARTIAN is, it's one of those movies that you realise afterwards reminded you of other fine movies. GLADIATOR's magnificence dims when you take note of how much it borrowed from BEN HUR. ALIEN wasn't actually all that original, but what a great movie it still is whenever you remember it! (PROMETHEUS was epic but disappointing somehow.) THE MARTIAN is a good movie, even a very good movie, but it falls short of being a great movie.