OUT OF THIS WORLD
In Ridley Scott’s best film for years, Matt Damon brings Mars mesmerisingly to life
The Martian (12A) Verdict: It’s Robinson Crusoe, but not as we know it
FOR The Martian to come out just days after global headlines stating that water has been discovered on Mars is what film distributors call a cosmically happy coincidence. Either that, or the greatest publicity stunt of all time. Yet while there is much about Sir Ridley Scott’s new film — things that are difficult to overlook such as the title, the narrative, the dialogue, the acting and the excellent special effects — that will indeed lead you to believe that it is about inter-planetary travel, really it is the story of Robinson Crusoe, albeit gussied up with a lot of science.
Matt Damon plays astronaut Mark Watney, who on the inaugural manned mission to Mars is left behind, presumed dead, when the rest of the crew, on the order of their commander (Jessica Chastain), have to leave hurriedly during a ferocious storm.
But Mark is alive, and with the next expedition to Mars not due to arrive for another four years, yet only enough food to last him for a matter of weeks, he is in something of a pickle.
For all the complicated astronautical jargon that occasionally makes the narrative difficult to follow for earthbound dullards like me, he acknowledges his predicament with a single, terse word of Anglo-Saxon. Which in the circumstances, is fair enough.
Luckily, however, Mark is not only uncommonly resourceful, but also a trained botanist. There was a time when sciencefiction films made youngsters want to become astronauts; this one might turn them towards horticulture, which never looked more manly.
Helpfully keeping a video diary for the benefit of posterity, Mark works out ways of growing potatoes, generating what we can politely call his own organic compost, that might be beyond even Monty Don.
Meanwhile, back on earth, an eagle-eyed Nasa operative has spotted sure signs that our tuber-reliant hero is still alive.
A rescue mission is plotted, though not without some political cut and thrust between the agency’s main decision-makers, played by Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and, injecting the kind of plain-speaking Yorkshire sense t hat t he r eal Nasa could probably do with in its periodic crises, Sean Bean.
Soon, the mission to rescue Mark dominates the
global news agenda, adding another level of intrigue to Nasa’s considerations. It seems that the agency might have to rely on assistance from the Chinese (a helpful storyline for the film’s marketing push in the Far East). And there is another dilemma: should Mark’s crewmates imperil their journey home by going back to get him? But really, the story is Mark’s. And Damon gives a suitably stellar performance, one that might well be recognised when awards season comes round. It’s hard to think of anyone who could handle this part, as a kind of unique everyman, with more aplomb.
Scott deserves great credit, too. With Alien and Blade Runner in his jetpack, his sci-fi credentials looked impeccable until he misfired three years ago with Prometheus.
This film — based on Andy Weir’s bestselling novel, with a fine, frequently funny script by Drew Goddard and a rousing soundtrack predictably including David Bowie and l ess predictably, Abba — marks a proper return to form. It is his finest effort since Gladiator, 15 years ago.
That said, The Martian is not without flaws. Nasa is staffed by suspiciously good- looking women among all the jowly men, and being confined in a spacecraft for months on end doesn’t seem to have made the astronauts the sl i ghtest bit niggly with each other.
Even Mark rarely stops wisecracking, or shows any real despair, but then maybe a muscular boffin like him would be sustained by the thrill of being the first human being for 4.5 billion years to tread the Red Planet all alone.
Besides, where it matters, The Martian deli vers. I watched i t with an astrophysicist friend (my only astrophysicist friend) and despite what others in his field have said, he couldn’t really fault the science, or the representation of Mars.
A man who really knows his stars, he said he’d give it four out of five. Me too. It’s terrific entertainment.