Leave... Him... There

Rating: 2/10 (1 October 2015)

Instead of reviewing the film I'm probably about to never see, I'll just discuss a quote from "Martian" that I've read in "Quotes" section that took me right out of my desire to see it. That makes it a dishonest film review but a very honest voice against politics behind this film.
The quote goes as this: "Every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out. If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do." Spoken by Matt Damon's title character, an astronaut stranded on Mars.
Out of the context of the film, it's horrible enough. It's tendentious and coercive and I feel called upon personally. Helping others is not, and should not be, the World Religion. There are a few people in this world that I do want to help, there are countless others that I don't, not in a million years. I don't mind being called an asshole, but it has to be for the right reasons. Refusing to be an altruist isn't one of them. If helping others is a "basic instinct", you know what else is? Killing others! That's right. And I don't do that either. Guess things are not that "basic" and I'm not such an asshole after all. Neither are other people who "don't care". Minding one's own business has become an extremely underrated discipline.
Besides, while other examples mentioned might hold *some* water, coordinating a help for a lost hiker certainly doesn't, because it's not altruism. It's paid work done by public servants, which makes it no less noble and is in fact greater because the best help you can get is by people who do it for a living. It's a damn shame to see lives of these people risked and resources wasted because of some fool who got himself in a situation way over his head. Which brings me right to the context of the film.
The fool in question is not even in some reachable mountain, he's on bloody Mars! He chose to go there, knowing if things go rough there may be no way out. Things went rough and now he expects to be helped. He expects that people on Earth pull massive resources, that could be diverted to helping other people on Earth, and risk countless lives just to bring some arrogant dick back from where nobody forced him to go in the first place. Just leave the fool there! Let him be an altruist himself and take one for the team!
Unfortunately, as I hear, he's brought back by the end of the film, and instead of ridiculed as a fool he becomes celebrated as a hero.
You, dear reader, must feel cheated by me by being handed a political rant while thinking you were reading a film review. Well, you were not - I pretty much announced it in the header, which is more than this film will do for you. You'll go see "The Martian" hoping to see a good Sci-Fi flick. I'm sure the cinematography and effects will be great, it's Ridley Scott's after all (and I'm giving it a grade above "awful" just for that anticipation). What you will, in fact, be handed is a terribly misplaced celebration of a morally bankrupt leftist philosophy, and be left short of some hard-earned money in the process. When you find yourself stranded in that chair in the middle of the theater, gasping for mercy, don't expect the filmmakers to give you that money back. They're no altruists.
I'm no altruist either, but, aside from now, I'm a pretty honest reviewer. Ridley Scott has been kind of a staple of my reviewing efforts and it appears I've been, in that capacity, chronicling the gradual decline of his merits and ability to choose good projects. Heck, even George Lucas knew when to pack it in.