Like everyone else has already said...it's Scott's best in a few years now.

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2016)

"The Martian": This was one I wanted to see in the theater because I'm a pretty big Ridley Scott fan, unfortunately never got the opportunity; like most people who got into sci-fi, I can thank Scott for that since he's contributed so much to the genre. I won't claim that this movie is his next big contribution to the sci-fi genre that will change things forever like his past films "Alien" and "Blade Runner", but this is pretty good. I thought that this was a good time, I don't know if it needed to be two and a half hours long; when it comes to the length of a movie I would kind of prefer that if a science fiction flick has a runtime over two hours long that it be a little more innovative or provocative than something like this, but it was consistently entertaining so I can totally give it a pass for that.
I don't really want to get much into the story because the plot is pretty simple, rather not spoil what happens. If you have seen the trailers then it's pretty easy to gather what the movie is about; Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is stranded on Mars with very limited amounts of food and somehow has to find ways to survive alone with all these extreme scenarios happening to him until a rescue team hopefully makes it to him in time. This isn't Scott's typical dark sci-fi film though; I mean yes, you can tell he's in the director's chair but this is a bit brighter and a lot more of an optimistic film in comparison to the rest of his filmography. I say more optimistic because the lead character that is stuck on Mars, Mark Watney, stays completely positive for most of the obstacles that come. He does have his occasional moments of despair and even anger, but he keeps his chin up so he can solve the problem and move on so he can survive. It would be so easy to make this character such a downer; not doing much except brooding, which is understandable for the awful situation dealt to this character, but they don't do that and it makes this character a bit of a stand out and more interesting. Makes me like the character easier than if the writing had gone the other route to darken up his character instead because of how his whole being stranded situation starts almost from the very beginning. If he wasn't as likable as he was, then this movie could have been a long drag to watch someone to brood instead of being proactive like he ended up being. Not much else to say really; the acting was really good, the writing was solid, the direction and cinematography were of course great and I was entertained and invested the whole time. I liked it. I don't know if I would say "best of the year" like it seems some of the nominations from the various award ceremonies this year are announcing, but I still think it was a really good movie. This was a movie about hope, keeping a positive attitude in harsh times and being as proactive as humanly possiblethis was the anti-"War Room" movie. If you've seen "War Room" then you might know what I'm talking about here, just think about it for a second. "War Room" when things get tough it tells you to sit in a closet, don't do anything productive except submit to your verbally abusive husband and pray about him because God will step in to take all of your problems away. Here, he doesn't just sit and wait for something hopefully good to happen or for NASA to rectify the situation. He does what he can, almost right away, to survive and improve on his bad situation. I know they are completely different scenarios, but the message is still the same. Do something yourself if you want things to change for the better, don't expect others to always do it for you. So go see this movie, it is pretty friggin' good!