Could have been a classic

Rating: 7/10 (31 July 2016)

The book The Martian is essentially a journal, making a movie of such a book is often very difficult, however, in this respect the movies succeeds, almost admirably. It does cut out a fair bit of the story, but not too much and the movies follows the narrative of the book quite closely. Having really enjoyed the book (apart from the ending – more on that later) I was keen to see the movie, mainly for the Mars vistas and for the spaceships. I was not disappointed, these two elements were simply stunning, and it is worth watching the movie for these elements alone. As mentioned, the story is conveyed well and the acting is on the whole good (with the exception of one atrociously bad character – more on that later), Mat Damon is as watchable as ever.
So, why isn't this movie a classic? In some places it comes very close. The obvious comparison is Apollo 13, in terms of story and visuals. And it is against this yardstick that the movie fails. In fact there is really only one failure, but it is such a big one in a space movie that I just can't let it go. In Apollo 13 (1995) the zero gravity environment (floating astronauts in the spaceship) is done perfectly. In The Martian, using CGI that's had 21yrs to improve upon Apollo 13, it fails miserably and painfully. In some shots I could see (almost literally) the harness and the guiderails upon which the actors were clearly whizzing along, this was almost forgivable, but then after floating badly along a corridor the astronaut transitioned to the rotating section of the spaceship whereupon they were "sucked by gravity" (presumably this was the idea) into the corridor at 90 degrees to their original direction of motion. This was painful on the eye (as gravity due to rotation doesn't work like that), but to make matters worse they showed the same transition twice, as if they were proud of this effect! This one scene (or one scene twice) ruined the movie for the same reason that George Clooney's "falling away from the spaceship after letting go of the strap" did in Gravity. In a space movie these things are fundamental, when they are wrong we are taken from the moment and left wondering who the much vaunted "scientific advisors" are?
It is a shame to focus on the negatives, but here are two more. Firstly, the character of Rich Purnell played by Donald Glover. I don't think this was Donald Glover's fault, I expect he played him as directed. The character was an abomination! We have seen the same "nerdy clumsy forgetful insightful bumbling" scientist character over and over again in Hollywood movies, and here he is, back again. This particular variant could have been lifted wholesale from Terminator 2, he was the guy in the computer lab, "Mr Dyson.., er, Mr Dyson.." (drops coffee, drops pencil, trips up..) "Mr Dyson..". Did I mention that Rich Purnell drops his coffee? Then trips up getting more coffee (think Jeff Goldblum here if you like). He eventually makes it back to his computer where he has dinosaurs along the top of the screen "vegisaurus Lex, vegisaurus" (sorry, different movie). Because all physics nerds are naturally also anthropologists.
Okay, nearly the end of the moaning (did I mention that the movie is actually pretty good! – more on that to finish). The second let down is the ending, which is sadly also in the book. Apart from a few Hollywood adjustments the ending of the movie is the same as the book, which is a shame, as it's rubbish. Here I think Andy Weir deliberately wrote a "Hollywood ending" with the eventual movie firmly in his mind. He would have been better off just focusing on the rendezvous (without the bomb malarkey) as that would have been exciting enough. Instead it was clearly a case of how can we make something that's already nerve bitingly exciting and enthralling even better? With fireworks! Yey! No!! This lets the book and the movie down. This is a Transformers finale in a 2001-esqu movie, painful and unnecessary.
To finish on a high, or on a song, there are good songs in the movie! I would recommend the movie, apart from the gripes (above) the movie is well made and the visuals are simply stunning. I look forward to the day when what is portrayed in the movie is made real, it all looks plausible! C'mon NASA!