What It Would Be Like to Be Stranded on Mars with a Frat Boy

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2016)

I seem to be perhaps the only person in the world who didn't fall in love with Andy Weir's novel "The Martian." In fact, I didn't make it through. Partially I was undone by the heaps of technical detail about how to make dirt, breathable air, etc. on Mars. I appreciated the research that went into it, but it felt more like reading a technical paper than a compelling story. But I was equally turned off by the book's tone, which is really the same thing as the narrator's tone since the part of the book I read is comprised completely of his journal entries. It had that painful quality writing has when the author thinks he's funnier than he is, and the whole cocky "bro" attitude might have been realistic in a character like this (after all, he does have to have the fortitude and the balls to want to eek out an existence on Mars) but doesn't make him any more pleasant to spend time with.
For the film, director Ridley Scott, writer Drew Goddard, and actor Matt Damon unfortunately for me but fortunately for the millions of others who enjoyed this story as it was told retain that tone. There's a jokey frat boy quality to virtually every scene that's like nails on a chalkboard, and the detailed realism of the books early chapters gives way to increasingly improbable set pieces that end with one character or another working in a witty quip while the director practically winks at his audience. I can imagine fans of this movie giving each other chest bumps as the credits roll.
The film looks marvelous, though, I'll give it that. The effects (at least those on Mars itself) are so seamless that you almost forget they're effects.
Grade: B-