"Are you f---ing kidding me?"

Rating: 10/10 (30 October 2015)

Ridley Scott is one talented AND versatile director. He directed several great films in many genres including science fiction films like 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner' while also directing historical epics like 'Kingdom of Heaven' and 'Gladiator', with the latter being my second favorite Best Picture Oscar winner of all time.
Unfortunately, since 'American Gangster', Scott seems to have lost hi directing sense, with a lot of films getting rather underwhelming receptions especially with 'The Counselor' and 'Exodus: Gods and Kings', which considered as some of the worst films he ever directed. Only 'Prometheus' gained good reception with still highly polarizing reception from the audience. It's quite obvious why a lot of people were worried about this film since his records hasn't been very good for last 7 to 8 years.
Well, guess what guys. Ridley Scott is BACK! 'The Martian' is not only one of his best films of all time, but also one of the best of 2015. All the actors in this film, regardless of their roles, have showed great performances overall, especially Matt Damon, who plays Mark Watney, the astronaut who is stranded on Mars.
Yes, the film is about this stranded astronaut who is trying to survive on Mars alone while people in NASA are trying to get him back.
It might sound boring, but it really isn't. It shows you his survival method on Mars and his journey to return home. Not only that, even the bombardment of scientific explanations aren't boring at all. As a matter of fact, they actually kept me interested throughout the whole film.
I'm not going to talk about visuals, cinematography, and production values, because they're simply brilliant and no need of further mentions.
It's also surprisingly a lot of fun. Mark Watney manages to keep the film from going into gloom-and-doom territory by using his humor and wit and mention of his hatred towards disco songs (which, by the way, are brilliantly used in this film). I could tell that these actors had a lot of fun themselves while working on this film.
The only thing comes off as closest to my only gripe is when Watney seems not appearing for 25 minutes, which didn't bother me a lot since they still managed that time very well.
But the best part was the epilogue, where Mark Watney becomes a survival instructor and tells his story to his students. What he says to his student really made me think about living through the hardships you face in the future.
Overall, 'The Martian' uses its great acting and script, directing, disco songs, scores composed by Harry Gregson-Williams (welcome back too, Gregson-Williams!), sciences, and 3D cinematography to make itself into one of the best films of 2015 and one of my favorite films of the year.