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Critics Consensus: Smart, thrilling, and surprisingly funny, The Martian offers a faithful adaptation of the bestselling book that brings out the best in leading man Matt Damon and director Ridley Scott.
Critic Consensus: Smart, thrilling, and surprisingly funny, The Martian offers a faithful adaptation of the bestselling book that brings out the best in leading man Matt Damon and director Ridley Scott.
All Critics (350) | Top Critics (52) | Fresh (319) | Rotten (31) | DVD (1)
Damon has never seemed more at home than he does here, millions of miles adrift. Would any other actor have shouldered the weight of the role with such diligent grace?
It's pretty sunny and often funny, a space oddity for a director not known for pictures with a sense of humor.
Bringing optimism, nerd-itude and a touch of crazy to his character's solo ordeal -- at one point, scraggly Watney calls himself a "space pirate" -- Damon is the key to the movie's exuberance.
The film is a profound testament to the rare-and underrated-virtue of simply not screwing anything up.
The Martian plays to both Scott's strengths and weaknesses. By relegating Mark's predicament to a purely survivalist scenario, he keeps things humming along without ever widening the horizon. But there was an obligation to widen the horizon.
It's a brisk, funny piece of competence-porn sci-fi.
Ridley Scott returns to demonstrate that he is a great science fiction storyteller. [Full Review in Spanish]
A hugely entertaining movie about the scientific ingenuity of man while coping with the age-old dangers of abandonment and isolation. Despite coming in at 144 minutes it doesn't feel long at all (or maybe I'm just still on Mars time).
The Martian is a crowdpleaser, hopefully one that may inspire the next generation of space explorations.
It's breezy and fun, and director Ridley Scott makes the most of his talented cast.
The Martian is that rarest of aliens - a movie that is a heartfelt celebration of what science can accomplish, wrapped in purest entertainment.
Hopefully, The Martian is not dismissed as a foreign alien in the minds of ardent movie-going SF enthusiasts looking for a realistic and soulful space-age adventure with a refreshing backbone of scientific curiosity and candidness.
With a great 3D that explores very well the red landscapes using mostly a large depth of field, this smart science fiction also knows how to use exposition and works so well due to its delightful sense of humor and efficient moments of tension when it needs to be tense.
Super Reviewer
I was so not into the 1 1/2 chapters of the book that I slogged my way through, so of course, I fully expected the Hollywood powers-that-be to transform this novel (in terms of scientific accuracy) yet utterly juvenile (in terms of literary skill) self-published book into a big screen Cinderella wagon hitched to Matt Damon's star. It's pretty good. The hokey exposition of Mark Watney talking to himself is tempered by Damon's self-deprecating tone. The action sequences are suspenseful and devastating, and Watney's agricultural, geographical, and semiotic ingenuity is ingenious. Damon gives an emotional turn, especially when he performs surgery on himself and right before the final launch when he finally lets himself cry and feel the last-ditch enormity of the moment. The middle of the movie with all the other countries' SNASAs plotting with or against the US is a little convoluted, but on the whole, the movie is nicely light and triumphant for being about a man stranded on the Red Planet.
Matt Damon gets saved a lot, like a lot a lot. On his resume alone are eight films (including this one) where he needs to be from things ranging from space to Nazis. In his second film playing a space adverse astronaut in recent years ("Interstellar") Damon plays the role of Mark Watney, who is lost on Mars and has to be retrieved by his old crew. Based on the hard sci-fi book of the same name by Andy Weir, "The Martian" looks to a future that NASA purports will exist soon; the agency already offering trips to Mars in the coming years. Read more at bluefairyblog.com
Finally, a Mars film done right. Ridley Scott has produced an inspirational space exploration thriller set in the near future with completely faultless science, stunning 3D cinematography as well as some nicely placed humour. It's almost like "Elon Musk on Mars: The Movie", combining the best of Apollo 13, Gravity, Moon and Interstellar & 2001 to produce the current definitive sci-fi film.
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