Well-made and exciting, if lightweight entertainment from a great director

Rating: 7/10 (9 March 2016)

I'm somewhat divided on the merits of "The Martian". As entertainment, it's smashing, particularly since it was directed by the master Ridley Scott ("Alien", "Blade Runner", "Gladiator", etc.) with fine acting by Matt Damon playing an American astronaut who survives a disastrous manned mission to Mars and must figure out a way to survive on Mars until he can be rescued.
I'm split on this film because in spite of the film's excellent production, it lacks much that could be considered either depth, ideas to ponder, or even resonance, things Scott's lesser films usually provide. It actually resembles more of a lightweight pre-Schindler Spielberg film because it seems to settle into merely being a 'crowd pleaser,' much closer to "Rocky" than to "2001: A Space Odyssey", though many might think that preferable. I also feel "The Martian" has weaknesses as drama: it seems astonishing that our astronaut appears to work things out too easily with little going wrong (until the final rather unlikely 'rescue'), and he never exhibits any emotional or psychological problems, something rather unrealistic as well as dramatically sophomoric. Frankly, it needed a harder edge, even toward the 'darkly realistic', and I can't understand why Scott didn't flesh this out in the script unless its production was, at some point, rushed. Nevertheless, it is excellently made, a spectacular piece of movie entertainment that I thoroughly enjoyed, even if I didn't carry much away with me afterward.