Disappointment: Human Survival Was Never Taken So Lightly

Rating: 6/10 (11 October 2015)

I was really looking forward to this film as it had a really good plot that could explore the survival struggle of a human in isolation, loneliness, fear and uncertainty. Unfortunately, the film did not do any of these; we watched a badass who was stuck on Mars get back to earth.
Since the very beginning, it felt as if the hero knew he would survive, and the theme of fear and isolation was never explored by the director. In the first half of the film, the only time we see fear is by an explosion of the artificial farm, there is also the potato counting scene when there is a storm. Both of which are extreme, showy ways of introducing fear; however under isolation like that, every moment would be full of uncertainty, and this can be explored without using explosions. It is difficult to explore these emotions with a single character, but that is what the story requires. "Cast Away" does a very good job of this. In Interstellar, one line of Matt Damon very successfully demonstrated this "You don't know how good it feels to see someone's face again."; whereas in The Martian, the whole movie was not able to explore the mental state of the character.
I was also expecting to get a better feeling of being space, the dead silence and how small the humans are. This was also not demonstrated well, something which Interstellar did very well, both visually and audio-wise.
The movie is not completely bad though; it was funny and the last scene where he meets the crew built up very well with elements of fear and uncertainty. The way he reached the commander was also very breathtaking.
In my opinion, the film disrespects the human survival struggle by taking it so lightly, poor job from Ridley Scott. Also note this; the idea of colonizing space is introduced in this movie.