Overrated and over-hyped

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2016)

If you're the type of person who needs all the details to be plausible, this isn't the movie for you. It fails quite remarkably in that respect. The acting is unconvincing from all the main performers and eye-rollingly poor from Matt Damon. The script is maddening at how dumb it often is. Everything is explained to you like you're an idiot, and even to the NASA officials like they're all interns, rather than rocket scientists who know their stuff. There's a shameless amount of movie-computer sound affects. There are several characters in this movie that are pointless, like Kristen Wiig, who is always trying to keep a straight face through her unnecessary lines. It is almost devoid of tension because problems are solved within seconds of being encountered, often to a blaring disco soundtrack. About 40 minutes in I began to lose interest and wanted to check the reviews of this movie to see if I was the only one disappointed. In the end, you feel like you spend more time watching this movie than Matt Damon spends marooned on Mars. Some compare this to Castaway, Gravity and Apollo 13. But it seems more like the baby of Community, Big Bang Theory and Guardians of the Galaxy.