Ridley Scott has not crafted a good film in years

Rating: 4/10 (29 August 2018)

Ridley Scott has not crafted a good film in years. This latest installment is unfortunately no exception to this pattern.
Taking a broader perspective on Scott's career as a director, one can easily see that he loves to depict a humble protagonist, one who displays nobility of heart, stands up for his/her beliefs and has a moral struggle but tends to choose the "right path" even if it is the harder one. I do not mean to say that path is necessarily morally sound from a viewer's perspective, or even from Scott's perspective, but instead it is "right" for that character and what they believe is right. Scott is quite practiced at this kind of character, as he's done it in several films: American Gangster, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Gladiator, Robin Hood, Body of Lies, and Kingdom of Heaven, to name a few.
In this film, The Martian, Scott attempts to break away from this formula a little bit. We are still centered around one main protagonist who is struggling, but not morally - instead, for his own survival. There's no hard choice to make, no pros and cons to weigh; he is simply fighting for his survival and has to face the reality that he may not get out of it at all and end up dead on Mars.
At first I was relieved that finally Scott is trying something else, as his last several films have been formulaic and tiresome. I was even looking forward a bit to seeing what he would do with such a film. But this film brings almost nothing to the table, almost entirely devoid of substance. It is as if the tried and true formula Ridley Scott is known for is actually all he is capable of as a director. I don't mean to say he should never do anything else, because certainly that formula is getting very tiring. I just mean that it says something disconcerting about his directing when his precious formula is taken away and this is the result: a large forgettable black hole of a film.
The struggle of survival is a theme tackled by many films, and I do not attack this film thematically. The theme indeed has the potential to deliver something very powerful, emotional, gripping, something that jibes with the human experience as a whole, something that, even if we cannot relate to directly, we can feel for the character going through it. 127 Hours is a great example of a survival story which was done well. We feel the brutality of the situation; he is broken down to the point of drinking his own urine and eventually his spirit breaks down enough to the point of severing his own limb off. Things actually happen that show the character's suffering, brutal things that justify the extreme action taken.
Nothing really happens in this film. The plot is virtually null, and the emotional content is non-existent as well. One would expect a survival story to actually contain a bit of struggle, perhaps even some brutality or exploration of extreme states of the human condition, but this films lacks all of those. Almost right away, since he just so conveniently happens to be a botanist, he figures out a way to grow food, and you fully trusted he would do so given his profession. As for water, there is plenty aboard the station. As a viewer, your comfort level in his biological state is very high; he has plenty of food and water to last him quite a while. So that's taken care of promptly. Secondly, the social factor. Loneliness of that scale can be a powerful cinematic element.to take advantage of, but this is also ruined by the film constantly cutting back to Earth, and then he finds a way to start contacting Earth also. So that is also taken care of. Thirdly, missing his friends and family. That just wasn't ever brought up even one time, so that wasn't taken care of so much as it was entirely absent. All this together shows basically zero struggle. Somehow Scott has managed to make a survival story into a cushy, comfortable ride; I never once doubted or was afraid for his life. I don't state this with revere, this kind of contrast is simply baffling and doesn't make sense whatsoever. There were a few occasions where the film tried to throw in a sense of looming doom, like the food supply would reduce or the situation back on Earth would seem hopeless, but these ultimately felt contrived and were tossed in purely superficially; it definitely didn't fool me any.
Right in line with the empty plot, character development is also nil. Our protagonist learns nothing, does not change in any fundamental way, nor does any supporting character. He gets left behind on Mars and gets rescued at the end, going back to normal life afterward. Oh, he starts to teach survivalism in extreme space situations, but this is more of an afterthought than a fundamental character change. Jeff Daniels plays the director of NASA; he honestly could've been completely cut out of the film and no significant difference/loss would've occurred. His role was to be the face to the public, as we constantly see him babbling on and on in press conferences about Damon's current state and what NASA is doing to try to rescue him. In fact, most of the scenes and characters on Earth felt pretty pointless. To some level they were obviously needed, as they are the ones who must rescue him, but that didn't make them enjoyable (not that the Mars scenes were much better).
I'm not entirely sure how much can be blamed on the novel the film is based on, as I have not read it, but I do believe a director has full control of a film and if a novel is a bit drab, a director can and should breathe more life into it. I have a hunch the novel is not so bad and it is just that Ridley Scott was assuredly the wrong choice for its adaptation into film. It also might seem appropriate to blame the script writer, Drew Goddard, but the dialogue was not so horrible, aside from the mostly banal attempts at humor - though some lines were funny. While I do not ignore the significant role that source novel material and screenplay have, I'm still placing most responsibility onto Scott's lap. He didn't portray any character change, he didn't use a cinematic eye to communicate any substance.
As far as acting goes, nothing is particularly terrible, but not much was required either. As a counterexample, Damon's acting in Interstellar was one of the worst performances to ever appear in motion picture history, but this was because it tried to be a very dramatic scene where he attempts to murder the whole crew. His acting simply wasn't good enough to carry that kind of role, so it came off as simply laughable. This film on the other hand doesn't call for much, so his caliber of acting was just fine for it.
All this said, there is one thing Scott shines at that I cannot deny, and it is present here also. He makes watchable films. It's hard to describe precisely what this means, but I'll try. It means a film that is entertaining enough, moves along quickly enough, is not completely laughably awful in every way, never gets too slow or boring - I should point out that this is completely different than a film having substance, which I've already said this film lacks. But it is watchable, I'll give it that. Entertaining enough in a popcorn sense - you don't need to pay attention much, because there's really nothing to pay attention to. This makes it more of a lighter affair, which completely contradicts its theme as I've already pointed out. So yes, I admit The Martian is not entirely boring as you're watching it, but after you watch it, there's nothing much to reflect on or take home.