A little too cheesy and pathetically crowd pleasing!

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2015)

'THE MARTIAN': Four Stars (Out of Five)
The sci-fi blockbuster from director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard; based on the 2011 book, by Andy Weir. It tells the story of an astronaut, that's left behind on Mars, after mistakenly being presumed dead; that desperately struggles to stay alive, while NASA tries to save him. The movie stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis and Donald Glover. I found the film to be very well crafted, and ultimately entertaining, but it's also just a little too cheesy, and pathetically crowd pleasing.
A horrible storm, on Mars (which isn't scientifically possible), wipes out astronaut Mark Watney (Damon); and he's presumed dead by his crew. The commander of the mission, Melissa Lewis (Chastain), decides to take off, and leave the planet without Watney (assuming he's dead). We soon discover that Mark survived, but his communications equipment was destroyed. Being a botanist, Watney begins growing food, in an artificial habitat his crew created. NASA later learns of Mark's survival, and plots to rescue him.
The film is technically very well made; it looks great and it comes to a thrilling conclusion. It's somewhat involving, and you do learn to care about the characters, but in a mostly gimmicky way. The constant video log scenes, that Mark films of himself, seem incredibly forced and clichéd. I never believed that any of the characters, in the film, were real people, and the entire movie has a very contrived/corny feel to it. I haven't read the book but I expect a lot more from Drew Goddard. I also expect a lot more from Ridley Scott; this is the man who brought us such science fiction classics as 'ALIEN', 'BLADE RUNNER' and 'PROMETHEUS' (all much better movies than this). 'THE MARTIAN' kind of feels like a cheesy US military propaganda film, except it's made to support NASA instead.
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