Sci-fi at its best

Rating: 10/10 (17 October 2015)

"It has been seven days since I ran out of Ketchup."
SPOILER FREE ZONE
The Martian is a book adapted sci-fi adventure about a man being stranded on Mars (the planet not the chocolate) and him trying to survive until NASA can figure out a way to bring him home. It stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain and Jeff Daniels, and is directed by Ridley Scott.
I've been a fan of Ridley Scott for a while as have a lot of people who love the sci-fi genre, but his movie list lately isn't impressive mainly due to the lack of emphasis on character. He's always been able to shoot beautifully as he does in The Martian, but maybe due to the material and the screen writer the characters shown on screen stood out. They were all believable in a situation that could possibly happen a few years from now and none of them were one dimensional. Matt Damon is the stand out for me. Not many actors can hold a movie all on their own, and sure Damon had others with him, but without him the movie would never have worked. He entertained and drove the story forward. I'm not one who watches out for the Oscars, but he is pretty much a shoo-in for a nomination.
There was a lot of hype around The Martian due to the book having only come out a few years ago (a book I am a few chapters into currently). The premise behind it was simple; Man stranded waiting for rescue (Wilson!!). But the way all the problems were shown and solved by the main character as well as NASA, are very original. The attention to detail and the thought process as you follow the lone man follow logical sense; something that can't be said for a lot of films. It's fantastically made and written. The Martian will probably go down as one of my favourite movies and easily my best of the year.
GO WATCH THE MARTIAN!!
SCORE: 9.5/10
SPOILERS GALORE
The first time I went to watch The Martian the fire alarm went off midway through so I went back the next day and happily watched it all from the start. What this movie did so well is find the balance between being nerdy science and entertaining. This could have easily been a drama and have straight faces and tears throughout. But it was far from that. Sure it had its more serious moments but they worked well with Mark's hilarious video logs on Mars. He has some of the funniest lines, some I use pretty often now; 'I've got to science the s*** out of this.' From a movie making stand point there isn't many holes you can poke, but scientifically there's a couple. None of these take anything away from the movie what so ever.
I'm going to get a little nerdy in this paragraph so stick with me. I loved the way The Martian started. No need to take 30 minutes to set the scene *cough* Interstellar *cough*. But Mars's atmosphere is very thin as was pointed out towards the end of the movie with the lack of aerodynamics in the escape pod Damon flies to space in. So how was there a huge storm that could blow over the shuttle on Mars? Also, Damon should probably have died a few times but its a movie so its fine. But what took me out of it, was the end sequence of him poking a hole in his suit to thrust him towards the ship. There is no way he controls the release with such ease. This is all just me nit picking the science of a Hollywood movie. Out of all the things, I think the biggest surprise came from Sean Bean actually surviving until the end!
The Martian is ultimately a celebration of problem solving. A lot of movies brush over aspects thinking the audience will be bored by the science and skip to the action. It's what this movie did so well. It explained everything perfectly without making us go, "That's just stupid." The Martian has a 140 minute run time but at no moment did I feel it dragging. Its a must watch for all movie fans out there.
Also I think Matt Damon is our most decorated fake astronaut. And um NASA, if you ever read this, please hire me as one of your engineers :)
SCORE: 9.5/10
How many times are we going to save Matt Damon?