It's alright. Nowhere close to great.

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2016)

"The Martian" is a crowd-pleaser. It's a feel-good movie. It's adequately put together, and it's aesthetically pleasing most of the time. It's not a tight, gripping story at all, it's more like a 2+ hour montage. It's perfectly fine as what it is, but it's certainly nothing more than what it is.
There are plenty of transitions between Mars and Earth. Problems are presented, and one after another they are solved, often without tension or deeper investigation. Things just happen. Science - as opposed to what I heard about it before seeing this film - is treated like it often is in these films. You don't get to really dive into the world of scientific wonders. Science is just a plaything to further the story along. And that of course is fine, as long as you know what kind of movie you're going into. If you don't count the nice visuals, "The Martian" feels like a movie that could've existed in the 1980s. It's not deep, it's not highly intelligent, but it's a nice popcorn movie instead.
Characters are somewhat shallow. They all have roles in the story, and that's it. I never got to really "know" any single character well. They do have characteristics to them, but it ends there. I hoped for something more for a movie that was nominated for an Oscar. I can't tell you how that happened, because this is not an Oscar-worthy movie. It's a pretty good one, and pretty good movies shouldn't count.
Matt Damon is well-cast and entertaining in the lead role. He's not great, and I certainly didn't learn anything about his character, but he's entertaining. The whole cast works well enough, and Sean Bean is always a plus.
I'm still waiting for that last great movie from Ridley Scott. Prometheus suffered from much of the same problems than this movie does. I like them both just fine, but whenever there's a chance to really dive in to the story or to the characters, to really deepen the tension, the moment is gone almost as soon as it began.
But, in the end, I felt pretty good once "The Martian" was over. Indeed, it's a feel-good movie, and does have its moments. A few laughs here and there, sometimes even unexpected ones. I wasn't bored once, and even though the science was just a quick pawn for the story, some of it was undoubtedly cool.
Not a masterpiece. Not an Oscar-worthy movie. Not even close to Ridley Scott's best films. Structure and pacing is a little off. It's also not a failure, and certainly not boring. I would recommend this one for those evenings when you don't have much else to do and even if you think you don't want to pay too much attention to what's happening, because this film doesn't get stuck into the details. It's an easy watch, and these movies have their place too.