Rushed, shallow but very very pretty

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2015)

I was very much looking forward to this movie. I read the book a while ago, and was immediately hooked due to the realistic depictions of technology and science. The book made me truly believe that the survival strategy of James was possible.
I know it is difficult to jam the content density of a book into a movie. Nevertheless I think too much of the book was left out of the film. Events that occurred were not explained properly in the movie and therefore come off as pure chance (e.g. the airlock explosion). The trips that Watney needed to take to get to the Mars Rover and to the final crater seemed like afternoon trips, whereas in reality they were journeys of weeks in length. Never do we get an explanation of what is needed for any of these trips to happen. We see him cutting a hole in the roof of the transporter to make room for something but it is never explained what goes there and why it is significant. In 70% of the movie Damon is clean shaven and muscular, while at some point he gets out of the shower thin and with a long beard. That beard is subsequently shaven off in one of the next scenes. Somehow the editing did not make me believe that everything in this movie did not take place within a few weeks, but in a time frame of about two years. The final rescue by the crew also seems very rushed and overplayed. Where the book made the disasters that happened along the way believable, the absence of any explanation make the disasters in the movie seem a collection of events to make things exciting.
Overall this is a movie that would have been very boring if it would have the realistic pacing of the book. Nevertheless I think the book deserves a more linear translation into the movie and with better editing to make the passage of time more believable. The movie seemed to me to be rushed and shallow. But the landscapes are wonderful.