By Muhammad Muzammal
ASSITANT ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
The end credits of Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” might bring back memories of the director’s “Alien,” where we see “Directed by Ridley Scott,” typed in a hollow font, floating over a cold, distant space.
Except in “The Martian,” the space is anything but cold and distant.
Taking a unique approach to the man-lost-in-space genre, Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard elevate “The Martian” from the confines of the standard space movie genre (“Gravity,” “Interstellar”) by incorporating comedy in the film.
The result is a breathlessly entertaining movie and one hell of a crowd pleaser.
This time, the man lost in space is the man lost on Mars.
Meet Mark Watney (Matt Damon), someone you’d least expect to be the hero of an epic space movie. Watney, as we see later in the film, is a jokester and as he proudly proclaims, a botanist.
After a severe storm, Watney gets stuck on Mars. His disco-loving commander, Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), cannot find him and regretfully presumes him dead.
At the end of the storm Watney realizes he is alone, ultimately leaving the viewer alone as well. For the next half an hour, the film feels like a live-action version of “Wall-E,” where we see the main character contend with loneliness and try to survive the desolate environment in which he is left.
Watney disturbingly grows vegetables using his own waste as fertilizer and occasionally blurts clever remarks in videos he records of his daunting journey.
Back home, the director of NASA, Teddy Saunders (Jeff Daniels), works with his team of geniuses to try to get Watney back to Earth after discovering movement on Mars.
The film has all the characteristics of a highly scientific space film. However, the creators take the viewers into account by using simplistic demonstrations to help explain the scientific jargon the film throws at the audience.
The film also incorporates the type of edge-of-your-seat puzzle sequences you’d expect a thrilling film that values science to have.
“The Martian” also makes us feel many emotions, but we never feel overwhelmed by a single feeling.
In this sense, compare “The Martian” to “Gravity,” which is a technical marvel but a storytelling dud, where Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is head-on serious; perhaps too serious for the film.
In “The Martian,” the creators make a daring choice in choosing their hero to be funny and lovable, making us identify with him on a level most space heroes don’t reach.
In this sense, Watney is similar to Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” In both films, the hero has an everyman persona and is given the reins of heroism and he succeeds with a wink.
Matt Damon delivers comical one-liners and he is somber in his reflection about his chances of getting back to Earth. It’s a great performance, enhanced by the impressive production around him.
Henry Gregson-Williams brings out one his finest scores for the film, mixing digital nimble movements with slow, reflective piano notes.
Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski showcases Mars as a desolate desert, with his camera swerving and panning through the rough terrain of the alien planet.
“The Martian” may not have complex characters (most characters have one or two definable traits), however that’s not its aim.
Scott’s film sees the future of science as hopeful and optimistic; it invites us all to experience a thrilling space drama that negates the gut-wrenching space adventures we are used to watching. Instead he churns out a movie about survival, humanism and the value of never giving up, despite unfathomable odds.