Houston, ni hao?

Rating: 4/10 (30 December 2015)

Looks like Mr. Scott has run out of ideas. We've had the oldschool grandeur of Apollo 13, the utmost, clinical, hysterical idiocy of Gravity, the absolute nonsense of Prometheus and "The" Interstellar.
Mr. Scott has tried to mix it all in one cup and ultimately flavor it with the Moon(2009). Well... where to begin...
The first minutes of the movie I've spent laughing out loud like a maniac. Because I saw some of the stupidest scenes from Prometheus, gobbled with nonstop science mumbo-jumbo and abbreviations and...
Ten minutes in, it's established that... something stupid happened and that the Martian is alive, because... something stupid happened.
Scott probably liked the effect... and the stupidity of what he did in Prometheus, so he had to insert the science and the bloody scene, just to build up suspense. Pro tip, kids: if you get a suit decompression - stick yourself with something sharp, and mix the blood with the sand and voila, you are good to go Gravity style with critical oxygen for as much time as you need.
That's followed by the heroic re-imagination of the Moon, where instead of something interesting... we see the convenient Botanist grow stuff up. Well, when you make it in space and on Mars - I guess it has to be interesting, right?
The plot thickens(c), when our convenient Botanist finds a convenient probe just next to the hab and builds up a pretty convenient chat communication with Houston. It looks like the sole purpose of this communication is to establish that something bad will happen, because the moment it's announced - it happens.
By then the movie straight parodies the tension of Apollo 13, unsuccessfully, to the point of mandatorily blowing up the USA supply probe, just so that we could get the Chinese some credit. I wonder, first Transformers 4, then maybe something I did not watch, now Martian... USA is really trying to get China, what's the tinfoil plot?
That's when some uncredited genius thinks of a solution that somehow nobody working there for a living has thought of and it builds the mutiny and patriotism of Apollo 13.
Then we see some solid BS that gives even Gravity the run for its money, and that's saying something... all because Scott is desperate for an intense resolution.
In the end, we understand that... we have to watch Pirates(any), Iron Man and Lord of the Rings. And that the whole world apparently cares for the one guy who is simply MIA. Enough to risk the lives of other astronauts, millions of dollars... screw it, billions of dollars and the future of NASA - just to get this one guy back. At least Apollo 13 was "true story" and tried to be realistic. This movie? Shows that Scott is trying his hardest to go from a great director to a random sellout. Sorry, Maximus, nobody is waiting for you on the other side... Except maybe for the blue balloon guy.