The Martian
Published January 26, 2016
Film info
- Title The Martian
- Director Ridley Scott
- Year 2015
- Run time 2hrs 24m
- Genres Drama, Science-Fiction, Adventure
- Tagline Bring him home
During a mission to Mars, American astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead and left behind. But Watney is still alive. Against all odds, he must find a way to contact Earth in the hope that scientists can devise a rescue plan to bring him home.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2:01 | If that is what Mars is like, it’s flipping beautiful. |
| 4:50 | Twelve minutes for an emergency take-off is incredibly good. |
| 8:51 | Love that launch is just a big green button. |
| 15:58 | I wondered how they’d do the log thing. Makes sense. |
| 18:08 | Sitting by yourself in a Mars storm would be terrifying as anything. |
| 21:38 | “Mars will come to fear my botany powers.” |
| 26:40 | Woah, I wasn’t expecting that. Love him sitting there, still smoking. |
| 34:53 | Such a media frenzy, I can’t imagine what Twitter would say if this happened. |
| 37:39 | The rover is not quite how I pictured it, but still cool. |
| 47:58 | Yeah, Pathfinder! |
| 52:40 | Hexadecimal. This film was made for Mr C, really. |
| 1:00:32 | “Technically, I colonised Mars.” |
| 1:03:37 | Gaffa tape for the actual win. |
| 1:05:06 | Never have I cared so much for a dead potato plant! |
| 1:08:21 | From nine months down to 47 days. Eeshk. |
| 1:14:29 | I do like the “Are you suggesting…” “Right now I’m just asking…” Response. |
| 1:23:52 | Rich Purnell is freaking awesome. |
| 1:30:19 | Loving getting to know the crew a bit more. |
| 1:39:51 | Seven months later… Yeah, there’s a lot of detail missed here. I can see why. |
| 1:41:07 | “I’m the first person to be alone on an entire planet.” |
| 1:51:10 | What the hell are they drinking that is bright green? |
| 1:52:39 | The MAV is bigger than I thought. |
| 2:05:40 | Oh, that kiss has annoyed me. |
| 2:08:29 | Space is so weird because it doesn’t look like she’s moving at all, but she’s going five metres per second. |
Conclusions
This is the first film in a long time that I’ve been really, superbly, incredibly excited about. I pre-ordered it on iTunes the minute it was available, and I even shared the moment I realised it had been released overnight.
Annoyingly, I had to wait an extra day to watch it, but that did nothing to dampen my spirits.
I loved it!
I thought the casting was brilliant, Matt Damon had just the right balance of seriousness and humour, Jeff Daniels had the gruff boss thing going, Kristen Wigg was great if a little less-sweary than the Annie I was expecting. And all of the crew on board the Hermes were pretty much as I pictured them.
The film had all the important bits of the story in it, it was beautiful shot, expertly crafted, and told really well - considering the source material is of a guy being stranded on Mars, talking to himself a lot, and doing a lot of maths and science to survive. Not easy to translate to the screen but handled masterfully.
I guess my only complaint is just that there IS so much in the book that I felt I wanted even more from the film. At 2hr 20, it’s long enough, but I was disappointed when they skipped forward seven months. Or when they seemed to shoe-horn the inter-crew relationship that had a lot more flesh to it in the book. That isn’t to take anything away from the film though, because if you haven’t read the book, I reckon it’d be just about perfect! And if you haven’t read the book, read it!
Rating: 3/5.
Rating: 3 / 5