Sir Ridley! More gravitas than Gravity! More stellar than Interstellar!

Rating: 8/10 (28 September 2015)

After sleeping through Gravity and laughing through Interstellar, (a fine unintentional comedy if ever there was one), it's good to see a contemporary Sci-fi tell the story well - and do the science right.
I am not a big Matt Damon fan, mainly because of his loudmouthed lefty nonsense and his limited acting range, but he was very good in this. The support cast were also excellent, especially the always compelling black guy who I can't spell the name of and Harry Dunne.
There was some unfortunate pandering by Sir Ridley to the PC brigade, which the film could have done without. The Gen-Y unhygienic (accurate), disorganised, (accurate), disrespectful (accurate), black guy, who also happened to be an astrodynamics genius rocket scientist, (inaccurate), was a poor casting choice. Also to suggest the Chinese would give a fat rat's crack about an American astronaut....at the expense of their state rocket-technology secrets....is laughably far-fetched. Probably more far fetched than flying into space in a roofless/windowless capsule.
But putting the film's failings aside, at least Ridley told a good story, laced it with plenty of well-explained science, spliced it with genuine humour and soaked it in amazing vistas of the Martian landscape. Plus he showed that if you put a woman in charge of a dangerous mission, she will ultimately fail. This degree of honesty is refreshing, in an age where every second antagonist is a flimsy female (beating up men ten times her size), or a female weapons expert/assassin/whatever.
Show em as they are, Ridley. Well done.
All in all a great film where I expected a load of boring tripe.
8/10.