The Martian (2015), Ridley Scott

[cyphomandra]

I had a year-long free movie voucher that expired today - just as this movie opened. I haven't read the book; reviews have left me ambivalent as to whether I'd like the science bits enough to overcome the narrator. I thought the movie might help with that, although it did have to cope with the fact that I don't really find Matt Damon interesting as an actor, and there's an awful lot of him in this.

So. I did enjoy it, in parts, but mostly I found myself thinking wistfully of other books/films that have dealt with similar material much more interestingly. Gravity has its flaws as a film, but it ran like clockwork, not overlong and prone to signalling all its major beats; Singularity, the YA by William Sleator, is still one of my favourites for the psychological effects of isolation (the browbeaten & bullied one of identical twins spends a year overnight in a house where time is sped up by its housing the exit of a black hole; he does this because he is terrified his brother is going to do it first), something this film spends very little time on (to give Matt Damon credit I think he is trying to do this through the bro persona the script has saddled him with) and Apollo 13 is better for actual teamwork.

Having grumbled - it does look great. All the space EVA sequences successfully induce in me a state of imminent terror and fascination. I do like many of the science bits that get in there. I admire any film that manages to make a Lord of the Rings reference while Sean Bean is actually in the room. The NASA cast is ethnically diverse, if very very male.

I'm still torn about the book. Even more so because now I have questions about things that might be answered in the book, but then I will be trapped in the protagonist's point of view, which the preview on Amazon suggests may well drive me batty (oh, wait. Aha. Now I am 133 on the library hold list, which should give me enough time to work through my issues).

Comments

[china_shop]

I own the book and can lend it to you, if you want to skip the waiting list. :-)

[cyphomandra]

Ooh. I will think about it - thanks for the offer! Did you like it?

[china_shop]

I did like it, but then I liked the narrative voice. :-) We were hoping to see the film over the weekend, but all the readily available screenings were in 3D. ;-P

[gramarye1971]

I saw the movie at TIFF a few weeks ago with my parents, so I'm interested to see what people think about it. I haven't read the book myself, but based on the complaints that one of my friends had with the protagonist, I do think that the movie helps by making the transitions between first-person log entries and third-person 'other people do stuff' scenes a lot less clunky. And the brief but painful breakdown that he has right as he's about to take off in the stripped-down rocketship felt very real to me -- considering that he'd spent so long completely focused on his own initiative in surviving his time on Mars, it seemed to me that he'd suddenly been confronted with the terror of having to give up that level of control and put his life in the hands of other people for the first time in so long.

I don't have any particular desire to read the book, but the movie's a decent popcorn flick. And I also liked the ethnic diversity at NASA, and the fact that they didn't really make the Chinese out to be villains at all.

[cyphomandra]

Yes, I liked the breakdown on boarding as well. I just found it weird no one at NASA seemed to attempt any sort of psychological intervention for either Mark or the crew, and the film didn't give me enough to separate Mark's personality from his coping strategies (Oh, and I hated the very final ending, which seemed to come down firmly on the personality side; so smug!!!)