Cast away meets Apollo 13

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2015)

As I sit here writing this I am also listening to an interview with author Andy Weir. Andy Weir wrote the book on which this film is based and its quite interesting how the book now film came to be. Andy like me was also a Sci Fi nut so went about writing science fiction and posting it online. However when he began writing "The Martian" there were no aliens, no star cruisers, no lasers this time round. Instead it was all researched scientific fact and it revolved around a manned trip to the planet Mars. Each week he would post new chapters online and would "update" chapters each time his readers corrected his factual inaccuracies. Eventually he had completed a book, it soon got published from online to paperback and the rest is history.
We have been graced with several poor adaptations of mars in recent times from the likes of the pitiful "Red planet" and "Mission to mars" and I don't think Hollywood wanted to finance big budget sci fi films after several flops but then blockbusters "Gravity" and "Interstellar" came round and we all know how amazing they were This brings us to the newest member of the Science fiction film family 'The Martian'. Ridley Scott created some Sci Fi masterpieces in Aliens and Bladeunner so when I heard he was attached to this film I was already anticipating this one. The premise is simple. A manned mission to mars in the not too distant future encounters a freak windstorm. Forced to evacuate the planet in the chaos they drop everything, leave behind astronaut Mark Watney believing he is dead and begin the journey back to earth. In actual fact Mark survived but has been injured after being impaled by his communication antenna. With no way of contacting NASA or his crew and the next mission to arrive on Mars another 4 years away not to mention dwindling food supplies Mark is left with a pretty tricky situation.
What happens next has been described as cross between cast away and Apollo 13. The film alternates between 3 main facets. NASA mission control on Earth, The crew members of the Ares 3 mission en route to earth and Mark Watney now stranded on Mars and the actors chosen for each portray them brilliantly. Note to Jeff Daniels try a serious role like this one rather than a silly sequel to Dumb and Dumber. Matt Damon portrays the role of Mark Watney perfectly from his mannerisms to his humour. Far from thinking this future is bleak and I'm gonna die on this god forsaken planet Watney takes a Bear Grylls style approach to survival and proclaims If I'm to survive here 'I'm gonna have to science the $#!@ out of this'. Each "Sol" (means Mars day) he updates us on his situation via his "Video journal" For the budding science minded individual like me many of his ideas also came into my head as I viewed the film but for the average Joe the film is not difficult to understand. I was afraid of the film having a lot of scientific jargon but was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to understand what was going on.
When NASA caught wind of this film being in production they were more than happy to lend their expertise to help this novel translate to the big screen. Legally you are not allowed to portray NASA in any other form without their express written permission anyway... In a way you could say this is a product placement promotion for the future of NASA which in a way it is but hey that's a good thing. Its not fully 100% accurate. We do know that the winds on Mars are no way near as strong enough to generate the storm style winds but by and large the film gets the science right. We have to remember it's a film not a science lesson. Author Andy Weir even calculated the trajectories, distances among other things to ensure everything is told as it will be when we finally make that mission to the red planet.
This film is simply stunning simply amazing but it will also have some good competition with the upcoming Oscar awards. "The Walk" and "Everest" come to mind. If this film doesn't win any awards I will be bitterly disappointed because I can already foresee Matt Damon standing on stage accepting an award for "Best Actor" So with that in mind go out and watch this film already if you haven't done so you WONT regret it.