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The Martian (2015), Ridley Scott
Sep. 30th, 2015 09:01 pmI 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).
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).
