By William Muawad ’18 and Charles Denison ’17

Summary: “The Martian” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is based of the novel of the same name written by Andy Weir. It’s the story of NASA astronaut Mark Watney played by Damon as he struggles to survive on Mars after his crew mistakenly assumes his demise after being hit by debris in a storm which forces the crew to abandon the planet leaving Mark to fend for himself. Mark is then forced to “science the s**t” out of the situation by problem solving and keeping an upbeat attitude in hope of rescue while brainiacs at NASA work against the clock to bring Watney home.  

Pros:  The art and cinematography in the movie made me feel like I was right next to Watney on Mars along with him.  The orange sands and rock mountains, along with the desert like flatlands, were exactly what I think of when I think of the planet Mars. The hurricane like storms that are so common are Mars, were depicted perfectly, as where the consequences that the storms can and did have on Watney.  Overall I thought that the cinematography made the movie very beautiful and enjoyable to watch.

The combination of Watney’s creativeness and spunk are what made him as a character for me.  Though stranded on Mars by himself for almost two years without enough food, he still manages to make his experience on Mars enjoyable.  Sure he has his highs and lows, but even during his low points he doesn’t give up on survival and his goal of leaving the planet alive.  Watney stays positive, cracks jokes, and listens to disco music, never giving in to the improbability of his survival.   When he needed more food, he figured a way to grow more, and when he needed to get somewhere on Mars, he figured out how to get there and went.  Watney never gave up and always stayed positive.

Furthermore, the teamwork between the crew aboard The Hermes and NASA, as well as the teamwork and communication between NASA as a whole, was instrumental in retrieving Mark Watney from Mars and bring him back home to Earth. NASA’s teamwork with China made it possible to get supplies to Watney so he had enough food to stay alive until The Hermes and its crew could pick Watney up from Mars.  Without the teamwork displayed between everyone involved, Watney would have died on Mars, but he didn’t thanks to cooperation by everyone.

Cons:  The one thing that I didn’t like so much about the movie is how there were at times too many things going on in the plot.  To be fair they did make sense in the plot, I just didn’t think that they were absolutely necessary to the movie as a whole, and made the movie a bit confusing at times.  This plot “clutter” also made the movie a bit harder to follow along with.  Because there was more items in the plot, the movie sometimes jumped around a lot from one thing that was going on in the plot to another thing and so on.  It isn’t a big negative for me, but I just wished that there was less time spent on less important plot points, and more time spent on the major plot points.

Final Verdict: “The Martian” is an excellent time at the movies overall. It has a refreshing combination of humor and drama that makes this film funnier than most comedies. It’s a classic make you laugh and make you cry type movie and will be held among Damons best films which include “Good Will Hunting”, “The Departed”, and the Bourne trilogy plus it is a return to form for Ridley Scott. Expect this film to be in the running come Oscar season.