Great visuals, poor plot

Rating: 8/10 (20 January 2016)

This is a film with great visuals, some surprisingly humorous dialogue (given the circumstances) and some even more surprisingly unusual music (you will need to see it to understand...). Matt Damon is perfect for his role and yes, it does seem odd to have a man of Nigerian background play an Indian (no matter how mixed his parents are) - but then, didn't Mickey Rooney once play an Japanese man and Marlon Brando a Mexican? Admittedly it's only a film, but plausibility is stretched to the limit plot-wise and the total package would be so much better if, at the end, he simply floated off into space.... But unfortunately such endings are not generally permitted in Hollywood these days - its a pity Mr Scott had not watched the ending of, say, Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue (with Linda Manz) before making this film, in order to gauge the power of a negative close to a film.