Matt Damon (Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox)
The crew of a Mars mission is forced to evacuate the red planet when a furious storm blows through. In the process, Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is hit by debris, and his crew reluctantly leaves him behind for dead. But he’s not. This is the premise of director Ridley Scott’s return to space in The Martian, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Andy Weir. Scott has recently taken on epics like Exodus: God and Kings (which I didn’t see) and Prometheus (which I liked more than most), but this doesn’t take on the hushed tone of most sci-fi movies. How many of those have a disco soundtrack? (Thanks to the moguls that be that this doesn’t have another pounding Hans Zimmer or Zimmer-esque score).
Watney has no way to let anyone know he’s alive, and has about a month’s worth supply of food to last him until anybody has a chance to rescue him, which would be another four years. He explains all of this to us in the trailer, and delivers a line that will probably be the bane of high school science teachers for a generation: “I’m going to science the shit out of this.”
Back in Houston, NASA staff Director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) scrambles for damage control, first to deal with a dead astronaut and then to deal with a living but abandoned one. When they figure out that Watney is alive, Director of Mars Missions Dr. Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Eijofor) engages in the fight between science and bureaucracy, though nobody seems to question the cost of rescuing one guy. This makes The Martian a kind of Saving Private Ryan in space.
You might remember that Damon also played he guy left behind in Saving Private Ryan. If Damon is ever really stranded anywhere, he probably won’t have to worry for long. But the difference here is that Watney is all alone. This space movie isn’t just about the adventure of space but the loneliness of it, all that space and nothing to keep you company but the disco music that one of your crew mates left behind. Because how likely is it that your average intrepid astronaut is going to take an iPod filled with Strauss waltzes on their spaceship?
Pop music doesn’t cheapen the grandeur and danger of space travel (they save the most obvious disco staple for the credits). In fact, pop music seems to be the right metaphor for its tone. Catchy variations on mass market formula show the ingenuity possible within the constraints of pop structure (“Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff”), while Watney’s climate restrictions force him to use his ingenuity to survive (using his feces to fertilize crops). The Martian is science fiction as pop culture, whose communal experiences, even the ones we don’t like (Watney hates disco), become a comfortable reminder of home when everything around us is alien.
The Martian isn’t anywhere near the level of Scott classics like Alien and Blade Runner, but it’s a helluva lot better than The Counselor. This is a straightforward and solid entertainment whose 141 minute pass by with appropriate amounts of existential despair, humor, and cinematic tension.
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The Martian
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Drew Goddard, based on the book by Andy Weir
With Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña
Rated PG-13 for some strong language, injury images, and brief nudity
Running time 141 minutes
Opens today at a multiplex near you.
