Not the Most Impressive Space Film, But Good Anyway

Rating: 7/10 (7 October 2015)

I was very excited to see this movie once I heard Matt Damon was starring and Ridley Scott was directing, both men who have more than earned my respect with their work. After seeing the trailer I was hyped to witness a man's isolation on an alien planet and the bureaucratic battle on Earth to bring him home. I did not read the book the film was based on so I did not know what to expect. While I feel that this was a good, I also believe there was missed opportunity that had me leaving the theater let down.
The plot felt more centered on the attempt to bring astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) home than it was about Watney's survival itself. I thought there was great potential to dive into the psychological effect of being stranded on a desert planet for nearly two years and Watney's battle to maintain his sanity and his mission to get home. There seemed to be less focus on the man and more on the mission itself and how NASA figured out how to bring him home. This lack of connection to the main character made me feel little investment in his journey that by the time of his eventual rescue I felt almost nothing. While I was routing for Watney to make it off Mars throughout the film, there wasn't much about him I cared about so I only wanted a happy ending for the sake of a happy ending. Likewise, I was not affected much by Watney's crew tearful reaction when learning of his survival or their heroic choice to go back and rescue him. The film overall took little care of the characters with its over focus on plot that whenever anyone made any sort of decision involving the mission, I felt very little for anyone's "moral dilemma."
Speaking of the ending, while Commander Lewis' (Jessica Chastain) "terrible taste in disco music" made for some good laughs, hearing a cheesy everything worked out in the end song made the ending feel very cookie cutter and disappointing. The film could have ended with Watney's rescue and have been fine but with a montage of what happened to the crew of the ship and NASA workers left an overly sweet taste in my mouth that made for a typical Hollywood ending instead of something special in its own way.
While the film itself is well directed, edited and acted; it was the script and the story that held this film back to from reaching its full potential. Overall, I did enjoy the film but had much higher hopes for it that it did not deliver on. While this film may not create the legacy like other space survival films like Apollo 13 or Gravity, it was still a decent film to watch.