THE MARTIAN [2015]

NOT AS FERTILE AS THE SPUDS SUGGESTED


2015, USA
Ridley Scott
6 // 10

Can you stick together half of potato and half of tomato and still make them grow? Is there still any audience for an actual science fiction? Is 'not bad for Ridley Scott' all that we're left with? There's only one way to find out!

Here's the TL;DR for you: THE MARTIAN is not one film. It's a wonky hybrid of two different films glued together. And since one of them is significantly better than the other it doesn't really work. Here's how I see it. The Film A is the 'let's science the shit out of it' part. The Film B is the 'bring our boy back' part. And the Film B only deserves to be dragged outside the studio by the back door, shot and buried in the dust. I'd had yawned myself to death if it wasn't for the nausea that made me desperately try to keep my mouth shut. The Film A is OK but that's the best I can say about it. It's a bit difficult to take all that science seriously (even though it deserves it) after you just saw a rocket launch in a raging storm.

Still, there's plenty to like in the Film A. Matt Damon is lovely, the science is pleasingly sound (if you can ignore the rocket launch during a blooming storm, and that's a big 'if') and the whole Robinson Crusoe motif clearly has still some life left in it. The proportions of drama and entertainment are probably a bit heavier on the entertainment side but that's not a bad thing on it's own. There is an issue with pacing, with the opening being seriously rushed without giving the viewer a chance to get to know the characters at all (Maybe Ridley Scott should watch ALIEN to learn how to do that...) but hey, time's money and also, the 141 minutes the film lasts, is long enough already as it is. I could still live with that. But then the Film B kicks in and things start falling apart. The actual drama dissipates like the oxygen from the fracture space helmet and what we're left with, really, is an another (albeit smartly disguised) serving of pure ARMAGEDDON. And when I want some Michael Bay nonsense, I'll just watch a Michael Bay film.

Which is unlikely.

I think this film is just an another example of something tragic that happened to Ridley Scott. In the past he used to be that sort of Brit in the Hollywoodland, bringing to his films something novel, something different, something highly original. He used to follow his instincts and infuse the films with his own sensitivity, but over the years all that seems to have been replaced with tired conformity. He no longer shapes the market, he simply tries to fit in. Having heard all those positive reviews of THE MARTIAN I was really hoping to see a glimmer of the return to his former self but with regret, as far as I'm concerned, it's not there. Instead I got a portion of decent science fiction, one good piece of acting (even Jeff Daniels and Sean Bean have been rolled so flat and one-dimensional you can see the sets through them, and that's a sort of... achievement, I guess) and another bucketload of American, cartoonish plot, characters and drama.