Ridley, Ridley

Rating: 3/10 (17 October 2015)

You, lucky guy. One day you got stamped Blade Runner on your forehead and we get distracted by this when there is a new flick with your name showing up on screens. Well, no longer for me. I praise you for the 1982 film, but that will be all. Maybe back then you had a good team, a more flexible budget, or more freedom from the producers. Not going to call you a one wonder hit, only by respect for the quality of the movie that is still linked today to your name.
But ever since, things (movies) were all of the same unnoticeable artistic achievement. Yes there have been some Oscars along the way. But Oscar means more blockbuster vibe than artistic accomplishment.
Nothing new with the Martian either. Except maybe the plot is something more of a theater play. Dry in action, emotions, suspense, novelty. It feels like Mars. Dry and lifeless. As lifeless as this long term traveling space ships interior design.
There are however moments when something seems to be happening. There are some potential powerful emotional moments but they get scrapped. For example, when he gets off Mars and is about to return to the ship that will get him back home, what a potentially powerful and magical moment to catch his emotions as he sees humans for the first time after such a long period. Instead, the film chooses to replace such scene some useless last-moment out of the frame action event. Why? Why replacing such a moment that has built up from the beginning of the movie with some cheap action? It's like throwing in the garbage bin a $500,000 Pre-Columbian statue that you carelessly bough off a garage sale because it didn't match your dining room walls color.