Imagine a guy who never has to pay taxes or tell the neighbors to “keep it down.” Wait a sec. Before you envy him as I do, remember that “getting away from it all” isn’t necessarily what it’s cracked up to be. Some of you won’t mind a death sentence consisting of being isolated on a planet just a tad further down the road than Denny’s. Some of you will.
Like Gravity two years previous, The Martian wasted no time in getting to the dilemma – a storm on Mars has threatened the scientific team and they gotta beat it for Earth before their ability to leave Mars entirely is compromised. Suddenly, team botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets clonked by what appeared to be a runaway garbage can lid – Martian Oscar the Grouch is gonna be pissed! Exploration leader Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) forgot to put one of those child leashes on her subordinates and painfully concludes Mark lost to the elements, ordering pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Peña. Michael Peña, for when you need a Hispanic supporting character in your white bread film, but find Luis Guzmán too scary) to get his ass back to away from Mars.
Funny story … Mark didn’t die; he just took a sharp antenna to the gut, which preserved the integrity of his space suit while shorting out the life systems indicator at the same time. Yeah, I know I would have said, “hey, where’d everybody go?” when I came to. Luckily, Mark is a tad more evolved. Bottom line? Yup, Private Ryan again needs to be saved.
So, how long is a day on Mars? It’s about 40 minutes longer than one on Earth (presumably so you’ll have time for a power nap during the day). The years are twice as long; the average temperature is -81º F, but the one big thing that wasn’t quite dealt with in the film was the fact that the size of Mars makes us Earth beings 62% more buoyant, gravitation-wise. Gimme a basketball. I say it’s the mark of a great film when you want to do research after watching it … or the mark of a persnickity critic. Ah, that’s one of my favorite childhood memories: when Persnickety Critic sings, “Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide.”
Now let me see if I can ennumate the problems Mark Watney is up against:
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- Mars is a lifeless planet. As is, it doesn’t contain food, water or air enough for supporting human life or any other life for that matter. It’s average temperature is well below freezing. At any given time, it is between 34 and 250 million miles from Earth.
- If Mark’s heater conks out, he dies of exposure.
- If the oxygen system conks out, he dies of asphyxiation.
- If the water system conks out, he dies of dehydration.
- When he runs out of food, he starves to death.
- All direct communication with earth has been broken.
- The next direct mission to Mars is four years and 3,200 kilometers away.
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Did I miss anything?
Luckily, Mark has an entire collection of “Happy Days” videos to watch. The Martian did not let us know if he had any access to “Three’s Company.” You monsters!
Essentially no different than Cast Away or 127 Hours, The Martian is about survival in forced isolation. Can Mark do the things he needs to do to last the time until he’s rescued? Can he even communicate to let somebody know he’s rescued? It’s not like Mars has a web cam. And once Earth finds out Mark needs a lift 
home, how easy is that going to be? There is no shortage of politics and gaming in getting the public to agree on a manned mission to another planet – for one thing, between the time you agree and the time you return, the administration will almost certainly have changed, perhaps more than once.
This film was a fantastic puzzle – constantly asking the viewer to consider problem after problem after problem. And it would have gotten tiresome or weary if Mark were a perfect human being or perfect problem solver; when he blows himself up trying to create a water source for his home grown crops, we are painfully aware of Mark’s self-limitations as well as his environmental ones. This enhances the interaction between screen and audience tremendously. As does the strange amount of humor – like when NASA Engineer Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean) is asked to explain the literary significance of “Project Elrond” – one of the subplots in getting supplies to Mars. I literally had tears in my eyes at this point.
The Martian is an easy top five film of the year and that’s with the December releases completely unknown to me. This is a fantastic film – great suspense, great plotting, and strangely well-paced despite the 141 minute run-time. This is a film that makes you feel smart for watching it. There are too few of those.
♪Astronaut Watney harvests the taters he’s made with his own human waste
How do they taste?
Look at him working. Digging plutonium up in order to heat the rover.
Driving all over.
Watch that lonely person
The enemy tis thyself
What a lonely person
Coming home Never, on the twelfth♫
Rated PG-13, 141 Minutes
D: Ridley Scott
W: Drea Goddard
Genre: Space Robinson Crusoe
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Scientists, if even to enjoy ripping the science to shreads
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Jan Brady (“Martian! Martian! Martian!”)
♪ Parody inspired by “Eleanor Rigby”
