Not Brilliant And Not A Musical

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2015)

While exploring Mars an expedition get caught up in a sandstorm and have to beat a hasty retreat leaving behind the body of a dead team member . As it transpires he isn't dead but soon will be as it'll take too long to mount a rescue mission and his supplies will have run out long before then
A return to form from acclaimed director Ridley Scott . Oh hold on I'll use quotation marks because that's not really my opinion "A return to form from acclaimed director Ridley Scott" . I'm afraid I found this rather boring . Matt Damon finds himself trapped on Mars struggling to survive . Early in the film Matt takes off his spacesuit and glancing at his inhuman well buffed torso you know every hetrosexual woman on the planet will want to use him as their own personal lick toy if he makes it back to Earth . Remind me and 3.5 billion other mortal men why we want him to survive this ordeal ?
I'm afraid I'd forgotten his characters name because my disbelief was never suspended long or hard enough to think I was watching a real life character trying to survive a real life situation but more of an actor appearing in a Hollywood movie . "Luckily I'm a botanist so I can grow things" he states. Wow , how fortunate is that ? Very fortunate I'd say and this type of good fortune reminds you you're watching a contrived story . It does try and bring science fact to the narrative but at the same time when you've got the actor who played Boromir in THE LORD OF THE RINGS explain why the rescue mission is called "Operation Elrond" this tends to underline the fact that you're watching a movie
One puzzling thing is that it's picked up several Golden Globe nominations - in the comedy/musical category ? This is ridiculous since the film is in no way a comedy or a musical . Its style is somewhat reminiscent of these films in the 1980s with either a diegetic or non diegetic musical soundtrack blasting away . Anyone consider APOCALYPSE NOW a musical ? I didn't think so . That said I did slightly respect THE MARTIAN more than the rather overrated INTERSTELLAR . It's just that when you compare it the breathtaking achievement of GRAVITY a couple of years ago or the thematically similar THE REVENANT then you'll probably find THE MARTIAN a bit lacklustre in comparison . I also think because of voter politics - Inarritu won best director at the Oscars last year - the Academy Awards might just give Ridley Scott a long overdue Oscar in 2016 , but to be honest he's made better films than this one