The Martian

Ratings: 7.0/10

Film class: A

Genre: Sci Fi Drama

Filmed like a narrative documentary about how to live on Mars, The Martian wasn't so much a space odessey as I had imagined. It was more like a movie which lets its audience understand the science behind space exploration. 

The graphics weren't that great, some starting scenes looked superimposed, and the landscape felt like a typical desert than an out of this world terrain. I believe the director would have done his homework to ensure that it's representative of how it would actually look like on Mars, but some inconsistencies were too conveniently unaddressed.

*major spoilers ahead* If a bad storm had initially caused Matt Damon to be stranded alone on Mars, why weren't there similar storms throughout the many solar days (referred to as Sol 1, 2, 3 etc.) whilst he was clinging on to survival? Also one particular scene was the most puzzling... He had taped up a damaged bunker-like base from the outside and the next scene showed him teleporting inside even though there wasn't another entrance into the base (where the potatoes were cultivated). 

The action scenes were limited, and the soundtrack was out of place... "Disco" music, upbeat oldies music set in a Sci Fi planetary disaster movie. Off, totally off. I know the director meant it to be fun, and funny, but it took out the classines of it. The humor was also excessively overdone (redundancy words intentional), falling flat on several occasions. 

The cast reminded me of Interstellar, with 2 familiar faces, Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain. Even the orange space suit looks familiar. But it doesn't have the flair of Interstellar. I can't help but compare yet another recent classic space movie, Gravity. If I were to sum them up in a few-words comparison, it would be that The Martian was down to earth, Gravity was out of this world, and Interstellar was... simply stellar.

Still, it was definitely an eye-opening movie about space exploration, or more aptly put, planetary exploration. Though technical at times, it was more cool than boring. The Martian test one's mental focus cos once you drift off, you might find it tough to keep up. Since mankind is sending a group of humans up soon to Mars to try to colonize it, this makes for an excellent "textbook" movie.