Visually stunning, but a poor film

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2016)

This movie can be summed up with Disney goes to Mars, or something along those lines. The visuals were great, as was the exciting intro where Watney becomes stranded. It simply falls apart after. You have Watney, who miraculously survives decompression in his suit from an antenna going through him, and carries out the rest of the film essentially enjoying himself. Think of this, you go to Mars, there is bugger all there and you are left there. Would you think to yourself "Cool! Just gotta colonize this planet with the complete lack of resources."? I'm quite certain most would freak out being lost in a forest here on Earth, but here is this astronaut just walking around, enjoying himself, knowing exactly what to do. Even when things go bad and he loses his crops, he's relatively fine. Even Watney escapes with little difficultly (yet when a rocket is sent from earth with less planning than needed, it blows up). This all suggests that such a situation would be a walk in the park, from survival, to escape. It's all like a Disney cartoon, where no one dies, and the story ends happily ever after. There is no notion of helplessness, fear, and the aura of the emptiness of Mars or space. These concepts are much better in Gravity, and even in Interstellar, even though Interstellar abandons realism. Not sure what Ridley Scott is thinking as he is getting older, but even the far fetched Alien films bestow more emotion and plot to the viewer.