Nathan's Review of "The Martian"

My buddy Nathan tells us what he thought of Ridley Scott and Matt Damon's latest...

Review

"The Martian" is a science fiction comedy directed by Ridley Scott starring Matt Damon. The movies premise is that Matt Damon's character is stranded on Mars after a violent storm occurs, forcing his fellow research crew members to leave Mars without Damon, who they presume is dead. Matt Damon's character must then try to survive on Mars and contact NASA so he can return home.

Overall the movie was very well made, there were some slight issues here or there but nothing to make this boy upset. I highly recommend you watch it. (Keep in mind, slight language)

Characters 2/3

Story 2.5/3

Visuals 3/3

DvD worthy? 1/1

Rating 8.5/10

My thoughts

FROM THIS POINT ON THERE ARE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Walking into this movie, I had watched a few teasers and understood the basic premise: it's an intense isolation story of a man trying to live without human contact. But what I got was something entirely different. The movie had a masterful blend of comedy and tension. There are moments where the movie has you on the edge of your seat thinking "Holy sh*t he is so dead", and the next you're laughing at a Lord of the Rings joke (though they missed a good Boromir joke opportunity).

The actors in this film did an amazing job; they convinced me that whatever they were saying made sense, they could make me feel the right emotions at the right time, and they were consistent with their characters. The one thing that I didn't like was how new characters were constantly being dropped in throughout the film. For instance, halfway through the film, NASA needs to figure out how to save Matt Damon's character. Suddenly, we are given Donald Glover's character. Who just fixes the problem and provides a solution and everyone is ok. There was no build up to the character, he just appeared. Which felt a little forced, but hey, who doesn't like Donald Glover.

The visuals in this movie are fantastic, the film did a great job of capturing Mars environment and making it believable. It also did a great job on making it seem like I wasn't seeing the same rock over and over. Mars is pretty much all sand and rock, but I could tell we were in a new area or at the base according to the geography of the location.

Sadly, this movie suffers from one thing: Edge of Tomorrow syndrome. Edge of tomorrow was a great science fiction film starring Tom Cruise, one I thoroughly enjoyed. But it's one mistake was in its marketing, and that it was horribly done. The movie was reviewed positively but it did not make as much money as it should have because it wasn't advertised enough. Hardly anybody knew about it and The Martian is very much like this. I went into the theatre 30 minute early to ensure I had a good seat, but to my surprise only 22 people showed up on the opening night. Now you could argue that most people don't see movies in theatre anymore and that the money comes from merchandise and DVD sales, Jurassic World begs to differ. This made me a little sad that such a great movie is being wasted and not being enjoyed by more people due to poor advertising. Hopefully this does not happen to too many other films In the future.

But horrible marketing aside I enjoyed this film very much and thought that it was very well done. All of the components of the film came together and made watching it an enjoyable experience. I highly recommend everyone to watch this movie.

Until next time, Nathan.

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