Stop with the story scissors!

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2015)

The Very Good: Ridley Scott continues to prove himself a steely-eyed missile director. Great eye candy. Worth 3D tickets for the Mars landscape shots alone.
The Good: The acting was excellent on all counts. Matt Damon makes a perfect Mark Watney. (Don't let Interstellar skew your viewing of this movie. Very different character.) Jessica Chastain was great all the way up to her character, Lewis, pulled a Captain Kirk (which was not the actress' fault.) Boromir and Will MacAvoy made great bookends. The Operative was essential for this flick. Well played!
The Ugly: Drew Goddard should be stabbed with the same pair of scissors he used on Andy Weir's story. It lost a lot more than a couple of f-bombs while carving this turkey into a PG rating. I understand plot points must be trimmed for a film, and the first half was reasonable, but the second half I raise a glass to toast the anguish and head-banging-against-wall that Mr. Weir must have endured during the making of this film.
The bottom line: Go see it... then read the book (if you haven't already) so you can enjoy the *story* part of the story too.