Ridley Scott's "The Martian," is the latest space epic to debut over recent years but did this lonely space story do enough to separate itself from the rest of the pack? Let's take a look. The Martian, starring Matt Damon, is about a group of NASA astronauts who begin the movie in the middle of a mission on Mars but when a storm hits and botanist, Mark Watney (Damon), is struck by a piece of equipment and is presumed dead by his crew who then leave him behind and that's where the movie begins. While the story is largely about Watney's solo experience, a constant back and forth with events happening in multiple locations really takes away from the "secluded," atmosphere that could have been built upon. While most of the experiences themselves seemed awful, the incredibly capable scientist always had a solution, which made it more of a "time vs. effort," scenario for much of the film and outside of one sudden explosion, the movie failed to make you fear space, something that Gravity and Interstellar seemed to do so well. Instead, we watch a charismatic man use his brains and wits to, well, survive. Plain and simple, this movie is about one man who always has a plan, something goes wrong, but he's quick witted enough to think around it and carry on. (Summed up perfectly in a tweet by Dr. Brian Cox) We also didn't see very much of Mars, the planet where this movie took place. Watney spent a majority of his time inside a month long designed artificial habitat and otherwise, mainly driving a land rover. The movie, however, looked beautiful (with the exception of any scene showing the supporting cast floating in the space station). Regardless of it's lack of fear or sense of danger, the movie manages to avoid the serious tones of most Oscar Worthy space Blockbusters, using Watney's humor to keep to the lighter side of things. There's even a pretty funny Lord of The Rings joke included, although, I don't think Kristen Wiig's character would have actually not known it seeing as she worked for NASA. The supporting cast is diverse and fantastic from the aforementioned SNL alum, to Marvel's Sebastian Stan, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Sean Bean and plenty of others. The movie also did a fairly decent job of being accurate (even if space movies ignore this one thing). Regardless, The Martian, is off to a strong box office start but hopefully the impending hurricane hitting the east coast this weekend wont slow movie goers down.
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