The Martian

            Ridley Scott has a remarkable hit and miss rate as a director. He’s handled sci-fi deftly (Blade Runner) and horribly (Prometheus). In The Martian, Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard craft a briskly paced, humorous, and uplifting movie out of Andy Wier’s book. Thankfully The Martian dodges Scott’s recent history of tone deaf epic stories like Kingdom of Heaven and Exodus: Gods and Kings. Unlike in those movies, you’re never checking your phone wondering when The Martian is going to end. Matt Damon’s NASA astronaut/botanist Mark Watney must figure out a way to live long enough for NASA to come and rescue him—that’s the movie. The film feels like a throwback to those big budget star-studded World War II movies of the 1960s and 1970s. There are recognizable actors in nearly every scene, but unlike The Longest Day or A Bridge Too Far, Scott manages to tell his story quickly and efficiently and then gets the hell out of the theater. As a result, the film is well acted and executed, engages with the audience, and when you leave the theater you never need to revisit this world again.

            The plotting of The Martian, lifted largely from Weir’s book, is predictable but enjoyable. It’s the kind of movie where when someone says “and that’s if nothing goes wrong” and then something immediately goes wrong. You go into the theater knowing that Watney will survive, his crew will turn back to rescue him, and NASA will somehow save the day. This precognition doesn’t make the outcome of the film any less enjoyable. There’s a moment in the middle of the movie where the Chinese space agency comes in to save the day after NASA’s latest mission blows up in the sky above Cape Canaveral. While this plot point is taken directly from the book, it’s such an obvious play to the growing Chinese film market that it’s hard not to roll your eyes. Yet you forgive the film for its trespasses because the movie earns the moment. All the scientists and other people working at NASA are shown as hard working, well meaning, and caring. So why can’t the Chinese be too? The film has no ostensible villain at all. There’s no corrupt bureaucrat trying to undermine the mission. No rogue astronaut with an ulterior motive. The closest thing the film has to a villain is Jeff Daniels’ Teddy Sanders, the director of NASA. Yet you never hate Sanders, he’s just the man who has to balance the needs of the many with the needs of the few.

            The strength of the film comes from two areas: Matt Damon’s performance and Scott’s choice to present Damon’s messages to NASA directly to the audience. Breaking down the wall between the film and the audience, Watney’s smart-ass remarks and humor in the face of almost certain death inject energy into the movie that could easily descend into a survivalist slog. Damon remains one of Hollywood’s best and most charismatic leading men. He occupies as much of the movie as the director and other actors will let him. Think of him sharing scenes in something like Ocean’s 11 or going toe to toe with Robin Williams in the “It’s not your fault” scene in Good Will Hunting. Mark Watney is a better adjusted version of Will Hunting, brilliant, capable, and an unceasing smart ass.

Surrounding Damon are a stable of capable character actors. Sean Bean, whose face looks like a deflated football, plays the insubordinate NASA flight director. Kristen Wiig is the perpetually concerned PR lady. Most of her scenes involve her standing there with her hands clasped over her mouth. Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor have roles as a NASA scientist and mission director. The rest of Watney’s crew, led by Jessica Chastain, are broadly sketched, but they each have something to play. Chastain is the conflicted leader with a love of disco music. Michael Pena is the family man, and Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara fall in love.  Goodard’s screenplay doesn’t draw out the full potential of the supporting cast, but at least it doesn’t leave them stranded in space.

            The greatest strength of The Martian lies in its unrelenting optimism. The film postulates that smart people, when confronted with a problem, can buckle down and solve it. Damon’s Watney despairs a little at first, then decides he wants to live, declaring that he’s going to “science the shit out of this thing.” As we watch Watney and NASA struggle to work through the myriad of problems confronting them, we’re comforted to know that these are smart people doing the best they can. Everyone applies their years of experience and training and works the problems in front of them. Everyone here is competent and well intentioned. Human ingenuity and creativity yield solutions, not God or some McGuffin. The central belief of the film is that the scientific method and critical thinking, if properly applied can solve any problem. Watney says this explicitly in an unnecessary scene tacked on at the end of the movie. Weir and Goodard’s positivist vision stresses that the solutions to our greatest problems come from ourselves.

            And in a movie era featuring orgies of earth shattering destruction, it’s nice to know that we can fix our problems rather than be overwhelmed by them.