Because I don't have eleven stars

Rating: 10/10 (21 October 2015)

This film lived up nicely to all the pre-release hype. Matt Damon is stranded on Mars when he's blown away by a Martian windstorm and presumed dead, and the expedition has to abort the mission. But he survived, and fixes his injuries, grows potatoes originally intended as a Thanksgiving treat, burns thruster fuel to create water, uses human wastes as fertilizer (for some reason, only his own) and recovers an old Mars lander to improvise communications with Earth. There are a few scientific quibbles. Martian windstorms are just not that powerful since the air is only 1/1000 as dense as earth's. It seems unlikely that the habitat wouldn't have its own communications with Earth, or at least the ability to communicate through the fleet of satellites orbiting Mars. And the ending piles on problems simply for the sake of piling them on. Really, instead of blowing off one end of the rescue ship to generate thrust to slow down, why not just turn and use the thrusters? That way the whole ship is habitable for the return trip instead of just a few cut-off modules. Matt Damon certainly delivers an effective recruiting pitch for NASA, though Jessica Chastain "swimming" in zero-g gives him worthy competition. At a time when many people don't consider characters interesting unless they manifest at least half the conditions in DSM-V, some unapologetic rational behavior is a breath of fresh air. Competence porn? Bring it on.