Better than Gravity, not as good as Interstellar. Still one of the best movies of 2015 so far!

Rating: 9/10 (6 October 2015)

The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott (one of my favorite filmmaker of all time) is that kind of film that claims to be a hit from the beginning but, at the same time, tries to remain a simple and intense story that can be enjoyable and easy to understand by a wide audience, not just by the typical science-fiction fans.
The movie follows two main story lines which remain parallel until a certain point of the action. The first one tells the story of the protagonist, "the martian" Mark Watney, played brilliantly by Matt Damon in one of the best roles of his career in my opinion. The hero is left behind by his crew during an ordinary mission on Mars after a huge storm that made everyone think he's dead. But as he turns out to be still alive, despite a serious injury, the movie follows his efforts to survive totally alone on a hostile planet without any possibilities to escape in the next years, until the next mission of NASA on Mars is programmed. But will he manage to survive? This is the question that remains predominant through the whole movie.
The second storyline is based on the action that takes place on Earth, where an entire elite of scientists and even the whole humanity tries hard to rescue the astronaut as soon as possible by planning an earlier programmed mission to bring him home.
The movie has terrific visual effects (especially in the 3D version, which I was lucky to watch) but also a quite realistic vision of the future, presenting an unfriendly image of the Red Planet, with stunning landscapes that seem to be more and more hostile as time goes by. There are no aliens, robots or other futuristic machines and this apparent lack of fantasy offers a significant touch of realism.
I recommend this film not only for the die-hard fans of Sci-Fi genre, but for anybody who wants to see an emotional and thrilling (occasionally filled with the specific humour of Matt Damon) story about one man against the hostility of an entire planet. Among other recent Sci-Fi movies, like Interstellar and Gravity, The Martian is also focused more on the human nature and not just on the science stuff.