Movie review: ‘The Martian’

FloridaGator80
A promotional still photograph from the movie “The Martian.”

Director Ridley Scott thought big with “The Martian.” After all, Tom Hanks was “Cast Away” on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, while Scott left Matt Damon left behind on another planet. “The Martian” has all the hallmarks of a winner by Scott, who also directed sci-fi masterpieces “Alien” and “Blade Runner” (we’ll forgive him for subjecting us to the steaming pile of feces that is “Thelma and Louise” – it’s so bad that I won’t give you the link). “The Martian” has another notable feature, too: it is slow-paced. But that isn’t bad. So, you’ll need to sit back and be ready for a great story told well, but without second-by-second action.

‘The Martian’
(2015; 144 minutes; rated PG-13; directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges and Kristen Wiig)

MATT DAMON’S A LONG WAY FROM HOME

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on Feb. 20. 2026.)

With a running time of 2 hours 24 minutes, “The Martian” is an overly long film. However, it is an excellent film worthy of all seven Oscar nominations (including best film and best actor for Matt Damon). Still, it didn’t deserve to win – although Damon was close – because it is just a bit too long. It did win a Golden Globe as best comedy/musical, but there can be no logical or at least rational explanation of why that category.

Director and sci-fi master Ridley Scott does a tremendous job of storytelling in film with a story taken from a novel of the same name and, despite being a bit too long, “The Martian’s” biggest sin is misguided political correctness of China giving the U.S. a hand in the space adventure. China, through its classified technology (admitting it has something it has never announced), becomes a hero in helping our astronauts. Yeah, that’s likely to happen in the next generation or so – and it is a big disappointment realizing that China or a state-sponsored company was a financial backer for “The Martian.” Otherwise, why put in this nonsensical piece of obvious propaganda?

A promotional still photograph from the movie “The Martian.”

Anyway, Scott knows that to be a good movie you don’t have to have dazzling special effects virtually every second of screen time. What obviously he didn’t realize is that “The Martian” is 24 minutes too long. He needed to bring it in more quickly and maybe, with a streamlined ending, he might have snagged a couple of Oscars.

In any case, “The Martian” is wonderful storytelling and filmmaking.

In short, a NASA astronaut is left behind on Mars after suffering what his fellow crew members believed was a fatal injury during a storm on Mars during their exploratory mission. The rest of the crew had to abort the mission when the spacecraft that would take them safely back to their mother ship was threatened. They could not return to Mars after that.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “The Martian.”

Of course, Damon was not killed and he then begins an odyssey first to stay alive; ultimately to travel nearly 2,000 miles across the arid Martian landscape to attempt his ultimate leaving of the planet; and then to stay alive until a rescue mission could arrive four years later. Along the way he becomes a farmer, a settler and a pirate. It’s all done well as well as in an intelligent fashion.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “The Martian.”

Damon’s life on Mars is a narration by him and his attempts first to grow food and then how he harnessed his available technology (even traveling to unearth – unMars? – a robot rover previously sent to the planet). All of this is done very well and even some of the more technical aspects appear logical and are adequately explained so most in the audience can understand the concepts.

Other than the previously mentioned idiocy of the China subplot, the action on earth is done very well by a solid supporting cast – especially by Jeff Bridges, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig.

Here’s a look at some of the primary cast and their work:

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “The Martian.”

    An Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner for “The Martian” as well as an Oscar winner and three other time nominee, Damon does a great job as “Mark Watney.” He maintains his intensity throughout the film and is effective as the lost-soul astronaut. Damon’s character has the advantage of talking into a video system recording his image and words. Damon just has a great affability and likability about him and whatever character he’s playing from “Jason Bourne” to the two films that I like him best: the poker movie “Rounders” (click here to read my review) and director Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” (click here to read my review). Damon is also a winner of a second Globe and six-time nominee. He was also nominated for awards in “Good Will Hunting” (for which he won his Oscar for writing) as well as Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus.”

  • A five-time Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Bridges is smooth as NASA director “Teddy Sanders.” He does a very nice job of conveying the character as the head of the space agency and how that executive would most likely handle such a situation (although he’s a bit too human). I truly enjoyed Bridges in a pair of diverse films – the great comedy “Dumb & Dumber” with Jim Carrey and a burnt-out, cynical cop as part of the ensemble cast that made up the absolutely sensational “2 Days in the Valley” (click here to read my review). He was also in “Speed” with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as well as “Ragtime.” His Globe nominations include his work in “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and the tee-vee series “Newsroom.”
  • An Oscar nominee and Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Wiig does a solid job as NASA public relations director “Annie Montrose.” Like Bridges, she conveys her character with aplomb but in the end you probably would have liked to have seen a bit more meat to her character. I certainly liked Wiig best as “Maggie Mayhem” in “Whip It” (click here for my review) and she received her Oscar nomination for best screenplay for “Bridesmaids” while her Globe nomination was for acting in it. Wiig has a baker’s dozen (13) of Primetime Emmy nominations, most coming for “Saturday Night Live.” Sadly, she also was a winner for a “Razzie” (worst supporting actress) for “Zoolander 2” and a nominee (also worst supporting actress) for “Wonder Woman 1984” from 2020.
  • An Oscar nominee and five-time Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Chiwetel Ejiofor plays “Vincent Kapoor” and is the space mission’s director. He brings wonderful conviction to his character and turns in a top-of-resume performance here. He was nominated for both the Oscar and a Globe for “12 Years a Slave.” Ejiofor is also a two-time Primetime Emmy nominee. His Globe nominations include his work in “Kinky Boots” and the tee-vee movie “Endgame.”
  • Benedict Wong plays “Bruce Ng,” a Jet Propulsion Laboratory executive. Ng is so effective that it wouldn’t take much to imagine that he is a real JPL director who was signed on to play himself. Wong has also been in “Spy Game” with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt as well as “Grow Your Own.” He is versatile with credits for films, tee-vee series and even voicing video games.

There is a raft of excellent supporting actors, including veteran Sean Bean and the Mackenzie Davis (a relative newcomer to Hollywood), who all do really great work making sure the foundation of the film is solid, but I don’t have enough time to drill down and examine each of them – and this includes the crew members of the spaceship that brought Damon to Mars.

I do truly enjoy great slow-paced films. After all, who doesn’t like “Chariots of Fire” (click here to read my review) or, if you need a recommendation of a forgotten great, “Local Hero” (click here to read my review). Of course both of those don’t have a sci-fi component and their pace is glacial compared to “The Martian,” but slow-paced doesn’t always mean a bad film.

“The Martian” was the No. 8 film at U.S. theaters for 2015 with $228.4 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. There’s no surprise for 2015 as to the No. 1 film. It was “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” with nearly a billion dollars (actually $936.6 million). The other films from 2015 that I’ve reviewed are:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Damon’s middle name is Paige; Wiig’s middle name is Carroll; and Sean Bean’s birth name is spelled Shaun Mark Bean.
  • Cate Blanchett was set to play mission commander “Melissa Lewis,” but I’m glad it went to Jessica Chastain because of a scheduling conflict. Cate’s OK, but Chastain did a job I don’t believe Blanchett could have achieved.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Sir Ridley Scott claimed that one of the most difficult scenes to direct was how to explain to the audience the hexadecimal system Watney uses as a code to communicate with Earth, which Scott admitted was hard for himself to understand.”
  • The gate of NASA is actually the gate at Korda Studios in Budapest, Hungary.
  • The exteriors were shot in Jordan.
  • A potato farm field was planted at the studio with potatoes in differing stages of growth for the different time frames in the film.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The writer of the novel, Andy Weir, first published his book for free on his own blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did at the then minimum price of $0.99.”
  • The story is set in 2035, according to Weir.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Andy Weir (writer) stated that the only moment from the book he was disappointed to not see used in the final film, was when Mark Watney makes an audio log that goes “How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense” after Teddy Sanders wondered what Watney was thinking about up on Mars. It can be found in the extra content on the Blu-ray release.”

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