technically excellent

Rating: 6/10 (25 September 2015)

Ridley Scott has a great eye for fashioning self-contained worlds, evidenced in this movie by convincing depictions of both the confines of a spaceship and the vastness of a planet.
THE MARTIAN is solidly entertaining Hollywood fare. How much you enjoy it will be determined to a large extent on whether you're happy to pass a lot of time watching Matt Damon, who is at the centre of it. He's improved as an actor over the years. Pretty dismal in THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, he was impressive in BEHIND THE CANDLEABRA, and has some fine moments here. The sheer size of the role might even attract an Oscar nomination. But there's something about him I don't get, a hollowness in him somewhere, a lack which doesn't exist in actors such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Leonardo DiCaprio, who fill the screen with sheer presence, just as De Niro and Pacino did before them, and Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy...the list is long. Damon has his moments, more than he used to, but he's not in the same league.
Provided you can live with that, and some of the clunky dialogue, you'll have a good time with this technically excellent movie.