Director: Ridley ScottCast: Matt Damon, Kate Mara, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sebastian Stan, Donald GloverRating: *****
Welcome to my favourite movie of the year in which Matt Damon stars in and as The Martian . The Oscar-calibre adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name is as awesome as it gets. It is like the Cast Away on Mars.
Damon plays astronaut Mark Watney, who, on a manned mission to Mars, is left behind because the rest of the crew presumes he is dead when they have to leave hurriedly during a ferocious storm. Jessica Chastain plays the commander of the very Apollo 13 Mission on Mars, Melissa Lewis, who tries hard to look for him but has to give up for the sake of the rest of her crew.
When they realise he is still alive, all of Earth tries their best to bring Watney back. A lot of technical stuff is thrown at you. (Not as much as Interstellar , though). But it is as bad as it looks. Imagine this: He can’t be sent supplies, there is no communication, no help upcoming.
Luckily, however, Mark is not only uncommonly resourceful, but also a trained botanist. He makes me want to give up everything in life and take up gardening. He keeps a video diary for the sake of posterity. Or for the next guy who gets stranded on the red desert of a planet. Obviously, anything and everything that could go bad, does go bad. But the ingenious pirate Watney ‘ sciences the sh*t’ out of the messy situation he finds himself in.
Watching this man survive is interesting. He’s a fascinating character. He’s got to be the most optimistic person I could meet on Earth, let alone stranded on Mars. H is us age of colourful language is so spot on. Thanks to Damon, the movie has an excellent sense of humour.
This movie is from the pre #WaterOnMars era. So, forgive Damon for trying to create water out of absolutely nothing. He does an astronomically awesome job of it. Of course, af ter he first singes off his eyebrows. And then continues to give an Interstellar performance.
The rescue plan is awesome. Isolation not so. Watney is officially the loneliest person in the Milky Way. The hare-brained idea of Rich Purnell, played by Donald Glover involves a lot of space travelling and complicated maths. Though, according to real-life astrophysicists, it all checks out.
I loved the way all the red-tapism is handled in the movie (yes, even going to Mars doesn’t get you out of that). But all the Earth scenes do not take away from the fact that the movie is terrifying in a Gravity sort of way. It could actually pass off as a horror movie as well. Nevertheless, a horror-comedy. The 3D in the film is gorgeous. This has got to be Ridley Scott’s best in years. I mean, Aliens was a long time ago. A+ from our side, Damon.
You will be forgiven for getting a very Robinson Crusoe-meets-Iron Man feel from the movie. That was the intention! This is the movie which will go down in history as the film in which Matt Damon, also known as Captain Blond Beard, colonises Mars. In the words of the very wise Watney, “In your face, Neil Armstrong.”
Also, disco music has never sounded this cosmically beautiful before. Though my favourite was Aretha Franklin’s I will Survive during the credit. He did survive!
In one sentence, survival on Mars boils down to growing potatoes from your poop.
Watch the trailer here and prepare to be celestially blown away!
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of ScoopWhoop)