Contains spoilers!
Following Alien, Bladerunner, and the under-rated Prometheus (I loved it) this is director Ridley Scott's fourth trip into space. The Martian is based on a book by Andy Weir, and follows it pretty closely. The major difference is that whereas the book focuses almost exclusively on the abandonned astronaut (particularly for the first three quarters, after which it gets rubbish) the film introduces the rest of his crew straight away, and spends much more time with the rescue attempt back on Earth. This is a shame, as what makes The Martian unusual is the loneliness and ingenuity of Mark Watney, the lost man on Mars. And he's not fighting aliens or anything like that, just growing potatoes and trying to survive.
The psychological aspect of Watney's lengthy exodus are not really explored, we just see him getting really thin and growing a beard. But Matt Damon is quite watchable and easy to empathize with. The jokes that he makes (constantly saying he doesn't like disco, and swearing) are fairly funny, which is not what you expect from a man with no one to talk to for a year. But then Watney is a remarkable character, and although his message of 'one problem at a time' could be useful to anyone he applies it particularly well himself. I hope if for some unlikely reason I found myself marooned on Mars I'd display the same ingenuity and resilience. The best parts of the film are when he deals with the everyday planning of life as the sole coloniser of Mars, either in montage form (growing potatoes) or in real time (running out of ketchup for his potatoes).
There is a strong support cast. Jeff Daniels is good as the mission boss. He's capable of making the hard decisions. Others are not so steely, in particular Jessica Chastain as the head of Watney's mission, who risks her own life (and therefore indirectly those who depend on her) by continuing to search for Watney when he is first lost, and again at the end. Watney has spent hundreds of days doggedly slogging along to protect his life, whereas others seem quite happy to recklessly throw theirs away. And NASA astronauts would never mutiny, it's ridiculous. It made me angry, nearly as angry as during Air Force One where they jeopardize everyone to try and save the president. Finally, Sean Bean looks and sounds like he's in a totally different film (a very boring one). Look out for the bit where he is given a tiny cup of tea and doesn't know what to do with it.
I found all of the excitement at the end during the rescue a bit of a distraction, that's not what the film is about. If you want to watch people spinning around in space, watch Gravity again. One thing I did like was the PR aspect of NASA back on Earth, and the scenes reminiscent of Apollo 13 where the engineers on Earth try and replicate what Watney is doing on Mars. It was a shame that of all the problems Watney solves they spent lots of time on the communication aspect, as his solution to that (using a two-digit code for each letter) is not an elegant one. Other that that of course I loved all of the use of Science and Maths. It's great to have a hero who's a Botanist and Engineer.
Overall, it was a slick production. The story moves along well and looks good. One advantage of using CGI to represent zero gravity is that since no one knows what it's supposed to look like, so it always looks fine. While I was really hoping for Castaway set in space I still found this very enjoyable. A final minor plus point is the use of picture credits at the end, normally reserved only for Army films but welcome here too.
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