A vainglorious Hollywood vanity piece

Rating: 5/10 (13 January 2016)

What do you get when a bunch of actors with IQs between 70 and 95 play characters with IQs between 110 and 160?
You get The Martian.
This was obnoxious film absolutely dripping with the over-inflated egos of the writers and the actors. The story is compelling enough, but not since Armageddon has there been a film that insults you more with its pretence at science.
My favourite part is where an actor with a likely IQ about 80 plays a rocket scientist who notices what everyone else misses, in true magical negro fashion. His computer programme tells him that the "calculations are correct" - really. Who wrote the software? Is this some kind of AI?
The film also tried oh so hard to be funny, but fell flat every time. Imagine All Is Lost with our man constantly telling bad jokes to himself. It has some of the most nauseating and character inappropriate lines in film history. "Science the s**t of out this" and "thankfully I'm the world's greatest botanist" come to mind. Oh, and "Check the math". I hope no gardeners watch this because there are so many things wrong with the potato subplot that I could fill this review with them alone. The most obvious one is that the potatoes are clearly peeled and vacuum sealed/frozen, and would never shoot. Suspension of disbelief is hard when the film's only explanation is "greatest botanist".
The goal here is to make scientists "hip" and make them seem above the same personal motivations that other humans share. In an age where so many have jumped on the climate change bandwagon because that's where the money is (without offering solutions, just scares) it's pretty obvious that your average scientist is not only not above reproach, but as corrupt and personally incentivised in their decisions as the average banker. That's the propaganda angle.
Matt Damon's performance was uninspiring. He's not the most likable at the best of times but in this cocky vanity piece, where the actor didn't even bother to lose the weight for the weight loss phase (obvious body double used) he is particularly grating.
The Martian is the kind of film that makes you feel you are done with Hollywood. There's so much self congratulatory ego and propaganda when we just want to be entertained.
5/10