The Martian (****)

THE MARTIAN is an exciting film that is full of science and thinking and "what if's" galore. The filmmakers must have been overjoyed to hear that water has been found on the red planet just as their film was being released, and there's no doubt that the press coverage has raised even more interest in exploring our distant neighbor.

I've heard a fair share of reviews (let's be honest, nearly all of them) refer to this movie as "Apollo 13" meets "Cast Away." It's a just way to define it. If you've seen the trailer or have any skills at discerning plot, you know that the story follows an astronaut stranded on Mars while his crew leaves him behind fearing him dead. A rescue mission is at hand the second they find out he is alive, but don't forget, Mars is nearly a year-long trip by spaceship, and the food supplies at his camp are limited. How ever will he survive?

The astronaut is Mark Watney (Matt Damon), a whipsmart and optimistic botanist-turned-astronaut. The opening scenes of the film reveal his predicament: a sudden Martian storm erupts and forces the crew to abandon the planet and terminate their mission. Heading to the ship, Watney is struck by debris (a satellite dish, to be precise), and his life support system goes offline. The next morning, he awakens in the sand, suit still pressurized and with gash in his stomach. It's like "Home Alone" when Kevin wakes up in the morning, except the family isn't a mere plane flight away, and he has no way of contacting Earth.

Scene by scene, the story breaks down into Watney's problems of survival. He only has enough rations to last 100 days or so, so he devises a clever way to grow potatoes in Martian soil. Earth finally finds a way to communicate with him through an old camera from an earlier mission, but it's one-way communication with no audio.

On earth, the mission is helmed by Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and NASA President Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels). They each have unique thoughts on ways to ensure Watney's survival: Sanders presumes the worst, and Kapoor the best. Using no more than satellite images and their stilted communications, NASA and their team are also forced to work through increasingly difficult situations in order to bring Mark home.

I hadn't read the novel on which the movie was based nor read how the story ended, so I was thoroughly intrigued at each turn of events. Director Ridley Scott is no stranger to space and science fiction, but here he keeps the story both intimate and technical that proves why he is such an iconic director.

Matt Damon as the lead is a curious choice of casting, and the running joke now is that he has a knack for playing roles of men needing to be rescued (Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, and now here). He is apt in the role and does a good job, but rarely are we let into his head or his emotions, and more often than not, Watney just seems a bit too optimistic about potentially dying all alone on a deserted planet. The story jumps back and forth from Earth to Mars seamlessly, and the situational approach to the story is effective and intriguing.

Would I recommend the film? Absolutely. The scenery is gorgeous and there are some good visual effects to watch. It may feel like a film you've seen before, and I still think a movie like "Gravity" did a better job of portraying the look and feel of space travel. It's a fun ride that felt scientifically-sound and was a lot of fun to experience. It's not the most amazing movie of the year, but conventions aside it gets the job done.

(Awards potential: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, Best Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing)