Emotional Human Stories with a Thrilling Backdrop of the Cosmos

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2015)

Ridley Scott has time and time again proved his ability to produce many of the greatest films of the Science-Fiction genre. In many ways this film particularly feels like a Science- Non Fiction. From the first shot of the film to the very last, this movie sucks the audience into a two and a half hour journey of quickly adjusting emotional experiences.
The Martian is funny, inspirational, thrilling, heartbreaking, and heartfelt. This movie often acts as a celebration of the ingenuity and perseverance of mankind. All of the visual splendor of space travel and the endless hills of this martian world are extremely convincing and captivating in their beauty. Despite the movie often celebrating the advancements of science and the exploratory endeavors of man, all of the space and science take a back seat to the core drama of the story which is entirely led by Matt Damon.
This film shows Matt Damon at his best with a subtle but wonderfully complex performance. Damon doesn't give the showy Oscar-bait performance but a very sincere and naturalistic portrayal of an intelligent and determined man, a guy that an entire audience can relate to and feel like they know by the end of the film. Ridley Scott's directing is amongst his best in this film, with a seamless introduction of a large ensemble of characters. Scott managed to keep me interest both on Mars with Watney, with the rescue crew, and with NASA on earth. The movie captures a wide range of emotions and despite the fact that I could tell what the ending was going to be from 15 minutes into the film, it's predictability didn't bother me. It wasn't as much about any sort of ending but more about the journey.
The film suffers from having several common clichés that are very repetitive of films like Apollo 13. It also seems to suffer from having a few too many secondary characters. Ridley made the decision to introduce each individual character with a tagline and job position which become somewhat irritating after awhile. Despite these flaws this film was successful in keeping me riveted for the entire runtime and it will undoubtedly be a contender for my top 10 of the year.