Your personal Tumblr journey starts here
Alien: Isolation - Blog Posts
использовать пароль 🕚,
Review: The Martian (2015)
Rating: 9.5 of 10
Space is dangerous, but it's also endearing.
Never the fact has ever been more apparent in the movies, than in The Martian. Set in the near future, The Martian is about a group of astronauts in the early days of human exploration on the Red Planet who were forced to leave because of a heavy storm--leaving one of its members, Mark Watney (Matt Damon), on the surface. For months, intelligence and ingenuity were the only things keeping him alive until he could be rescued.
The Martian, for me, was an important movie because it showed what being an astronaut really is about. Space is a dangerous thing, and the movie never downplay on that, but The Martian also puts space in an endearing light that makes us never wonder why did we ever go to space in the first place. Because the answer will always be: why not? Why not be the first? Why not find out, for the greater human race? For anyone intimate with space travel, when Watney gave lecture about being an astronaut and basically says, "When you're up there, at some point you're gonna think you're gonna die and maybe you will," you know that it's 100% true but you also know that doesn't mean you don't wanna go up there in a heartbeat. It's hard to depict a balanced portrayal about the dangers of space, but The Martian nailed it.
Science is also definitely the hero in this film, which is a surprisingly rare occurrence in popular fiction. Not only did Watney repeatedly was shown applying basic science concept to solve his problem, the film also pretty accurately depicted the workings of NASA; how astronauts, ground control, and teams of scientists work hard and thoroughly to reach a common goal. Aside from being very capable, scientists and astronauts in this film were also pretty humorous--and it's important because real scientists love their jokes too, but are almost never depicted as such. It's a very science-positive movie and I appreciated it.
At one point in the movie, Matt Damon's character, who was a botanist exclaimed, "Mars will come to fear my botany powers!" asserting his conviction to grow food on the surface of Mars--something that hadn't been done by any humans before, ever. That, among many other scenes in the movie, was a clear example of the giddiness, humor, and determination of scientists existed in the film.
But in the very core of the movie, The Martian is about human’s determination to live, that everyone can relate to.
The Martian also nailed it with the casting. Matt Damon has the perfect charisma and cockiness about him, but I mostly want to commend the casting choices for the other characters. The most prominent members of the space crew were women (Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara), and at least half of other supporting characters were of minorities (of African, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian descent). Hollywood movies about space can too frequently feel a bit jingoistic (with NASA obviously being an American organization), but The Martian never felt like that the slightest. From the start, The Martian is a humanistic effort.
Directed by veteran director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus, Black Hawk Down), The Martian looked beautiful, and the movie flowed beautifully as well. The threats were terrifying as hell, and there were no fake or newfangled technologies so everything stayed grounded. But despite all the hardship Watney was against, it’s a strangely hopeful film.
TL;DR The movie is an obvious bait for people like me--who loves movies, space, and science in the equal amount--but it's also a damn good thriller about survival that everyone could enjoy.
Favorite things 👽