The Martian is a solid, breezy, funny, and entertaining film. In a rare occurrence where the movie improves upon the book, Ridley Scott and co. have made a film that's smart, yet doesn't forget it's audience.
Poor Matt Damon. He's been stranded and needed rescuing in Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, and now The Martian. After hearing that Matt Damon was starring in a new space movie (wait, didn't he just do that?), I decided to pick up the book The Martian by Andy Weir and to be honest, it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. It's impeccably attuned to scientific detail (even a little much for someone like me who is extremely into the details of things), sometimes even to the expense of the story. I felt the book plodded along and even got bogged down at certain plot points, only to get (semi) rescued from the main character, Matt Watney, and his ever consistent humor.
With that being said, I realized something: some people may love this book. Some people may love the scientific detail, and that's great. Regardless of how you love science or not, this movie is solid.
While not as introspective or theme-exploring as some other recent space films like Gravity, Interstellar, and Moon (all excellent by the way), I did appreciate The Martian for being so easy-breezy. Matt Damon is perfect for the role and I wonder how the movie would have fared had he not been cast as Matt Watney. Matt Damon is insanely likable and charismatic, which makes his character that way, too. We like Watney because he's likable, and that's about it. If I had one major qualm with the movie, it's that we really don't know anything about this guy. Again, we like and care about him because he's likable.
In the end, I would highly recommend The Martian. It's a very well made movie and the best we've seen from director Ridley Scott in quite some time.
Grade: B+
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