Hardly Out of This World

Rating: 6/10 (28 January 2016)

The Martian is a reasonably well-crafted survival movie about a space mission gone awry, leaving botanist/astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) behind on Mars to fend for himself. The movie focuses first on Watney's determined use of his scientific knowledge and awareness of the NASA Mars program to maintain his existence, interesting efforts that both segue into and provide time for the second area of plot development, the predictable NASA parries and thrusts to communicate with and ultimately save him. The film shows due respect for scientific method, logical problem-solving and human ingenuity, but loses momentum as we work through the rescue planning process and its travails and successes. The end is ridiculous enough to once again propel us back to the land of astro-cowboys and movie illogic of which this is hardly a cinematic first. Ridley Scott, unsurprisingly now, has created a movie that will generate an excellent revenue stream, leaving us with a comfortable notion of human goodwill and cooperation (even the Chinese government plays nice in this film) from which smiles and nods are fully expected - almost demanded - and more difficult possible realizations are left unexplored.
The film, which I streamed at home, is fine enough to look at, the digitized version of Mars invoking the feeling of dry desolation and, easily enough, the loneliness and depression that one might feel in Watney's position. Unfortunately, the short scenes and rapid changes in camera position, fitting for the energetic survival activities on which Scott focuses, never allow for a deep examination of Watney's almost-certain growing desperation. The difficulty of his situation is obvious, but we are never privy to his quiet fear, until perhaps just before the final sequence. This is a failure attributable to all aspects of the film: writing cinematography, Scott's direction of Damon, and the choices made by Damon himself, as the lead actor. We as an audience, then, are always too optimistic and/or involved in the details as the film progresses, chuckling as Damon makes multiple jokes about the musical taste of the mission commander, hardly ever feeling as though this could really end badly. The film generates identification, but not empathy.
The rest of the acting ensemble is not very effective, both due to the perfunctory script and their limited efforts to read more into it. Scott has us believe that they are true soldiers, unwilling to even mention in passing any possible concerns other than the problems at hand. There is seemingly no cinematic time for disturbing tangential insights into what all this expense and risk is worth. Why the hell are we exploring Mars anyway, in this near future universe where budgets are spoken of as a concern, but cost-benefit and human risk - and the problems right here on Earth - do not appear to be worth a few minutes of discussion? Thus, we have Jeff Daniels punching through his lines as head of NASA as if he is late for dinner, Jessica Chastain trying half-heartedly to be a macho spaceship commander and Chiwetel Ejiofor alternating between nerdy ground program commander and improv comedian. This is entertainment, after all, Scott appears to be telling us, not an examination of a difficult situation from multiple perspectives or an existential conversation about the value of space exploration.
All-in-all, this is a decent popcorn-muncher for the local Cineplex or for a night of home viewing when one does not want to be intellectually or emotionally taxed. However, one might expect more from the 78-year old Scott as he nears the end of his career. Is it too much to hope that he try - the attempt is all I ask - to craft something nearer to Blade Runner, The Duellists or the original Alien, with the huge budgets at his disposal?