A fantastic new voyage with scott Ridley

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2015)

As terrifying as I imagine it would be if I were suddenly abandoned all by myself on the planet Mars, one of the first questions that came to my mind the first time I ever saw the trailer for this year's The Martian was can this film succeed mostly being carried by only one man? I know that Tom Hanks successfully pulled it off in (2000) 'Cast away', but he at least had the island's wilderness beauty to help with enlivening the film. Can Matt Dammon pull it all off in a geography that what I understand is mostly only dessert? The answer is that with director Ridley Scott behind the scenes, many things are possible; particularly 'The Martian' serving as just one of those examples!
In the near future 2030's, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) with a crew of others are on day number 18 on Mars living in an artificial habitat of a 2 month mission to research the possibilities of Mars one day being able to be colonized. During a sudden massive storm, the crew is forced to evacuate early in their mission to make their 4 year journey back home. Thinking that Mark was killed upon being swept away by a monstrous dust storm and only minutes to escape before the spacecraft is crushed, the crew take off and leave him behind. Mark miraculously escapes the fate of death. However; the bad news is that with the limited supplies of food and NASA equipment left on Mars, he now has the seemingly impossible task of trying to somehow make contact with NASA. Even when; as seen in the trailers, NASA discovers he is alive, NASA are pretty much as clueless to how to get him back as it is with Mark; thus begins the lengthy journey of twist and turns for a workable protocol to be created.
Matt Damon does a fairly good job inhabiting the role of the stranded astronaut who knows that his chances of ever getting back home are slim to nothing; most likely in his mind his status being the latter. Determined to be a good scientist and find as many answers in his research before all his months of food ahead runs out causing him to die of starvation, he gets to work both doing mechanical work and also attempting to grow food in an artificial greenhouse composed only of human wastes to plant in. Unlike Chuck Noland in 'Cast Away', Mark Watney does not have Wilson the volleyball to have a one way conversation with and to also serve for dialogue in the movie. However; documenting all his experiences daily in the video loge diaries serves as the inside of his mind both good and bad days in his uncertain life. Here you get both his dramatic fragile demeanor and his comical demeanor in interpreting life on Mars.
Back on earth at NASA, there are a complex of characters adding to the tension. There is the self-serving director of NASA Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) whose desire to get Mark back is only second to his bigger concerns of NASA equipment, money, and propaganda. In contrast to his minimal concern for safety in getting Mark back is flight director Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean); whom wants nothing more than to get Mark back safely back home. Under the authority of Teddy while butting heads with his boss from time to time, Mitch wrestles between doing what Teddy tells him to do, or for him to do what is morally right.
As captivating as the story was, the most enchanting part in the movie for me was the unexpected beauty of Mars! I've have not seen enough photos of the planet of Mars to make a comparison, but I suspect that Ridley Scott's perception of Mars is beautifully created more from his imagination than the real Mars. From time to time, visually you're treated to spontaneous sunsets along the rocky mountains lining the dessert land on the horizon; in which blossoms in a starry dessert night. If that is the way Mars really is; while I'd never want to live there, I'm love to visit there.
Not being of a scientific mind, it is hard for me to distinguish how credible many of the strategies in this space movie are; as far as the tactics attempted to bring Mark back home. Nevertheless, the film did remind me very much of, (1995) 'Apollo 13'; which was the true story of astronauts tackling and improvising the impossible odds of getting back to earth. The fact that the real NASA seems to be getting closer in the years to actually putting a person on Mars makes this tale seem even more plausible.
While 'The Martian' has been airbound for at least a few weeks so far inside movie theaters everywhere; while I suspect that it will be around for at least another week, the abundance of new feature films coming out I believe will create the inevitable: it will soon blast away from the big screen and land into the family small screen. If you can, I'd highly recommend to watch this new science fiction film on the big screen.