enjoyable but not award worthy

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2015)

This is an enjoyable science adventure movie, but not to be taken very seriously. It delves into some interesting themes about survival on a hostile planet. The cast is solid and the acting is quite good. Matt Damon can act. But when I see a science fiction movie, I may need a limit on how far my suspension of disbelief has to carry me. In this movie, two immediate issues arise which I fought the rest of the movie. First, Mars has an atmosphere about 1% of Earth--hey, there is no air or atmosphere to speak of there. So the opening crucial plot-determining storm which sets up the movie is not believable--there's just not enough atmosphere to throw boulders around on Mars like that. We have had video from Mars for decades--it's quite peaceful and uneventful there. Second, and more challenging than that for me, somehow with all the elaborate technology they brought to and set up on Mars for their little colony, there was no hardware for radio transmission in all their equipment. Really?? They set up a working colony on Mars and the only transmitter was on the rocket they would use to return to Earth??? Made for a challenging circumstance for Damon. Still fun and worth watching. I liked it a bit more than Gravity.