The Martian (2015, Dir. Ridley Scott):
Those familiar with Ridley Scott’s work will get a kick out of the opening moments of The Martian: the title of the movie morphing into rune-like characters, an expansive shot of an alien planet rolling up to greet us, the soundtrack an ambient moan that reminds us that in space, no one can hear you scream. Yes, it all hearkens back to Alien, and it wasn’t so long ago that Scott revisited that universe to lesser effect in Prometheus. But this time it’s a feint; that ominous little intro isn’t so much a harbinger as it is a subscript, an undertow. Dangerous, life-threatening things happen in The Martian, but the film’s mood is more accurately conveyed by marooned astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) when he sighs: “I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.”
The Martian gets to the point quickly, with Watney presumed dead after an aborted mission and abandoned on the Red Planet in the first 10 minutes. This could have been told as a harrowing tale of survival, and indeed there are moments that quicken the pulse, but Andy Weir, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, and screenwriter Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) are having too much fun geeking out about science to get too morose about things. Every life-and-death scenario that Watney faces is boiled down to estimates and jiggered solutions. First he must figure out how to grow enough food for survival (potatoes, human feces and Martian soil does the trick); then he must find a way to communicate with Earth and get assistance (thank goodness for the good ol’ Mars Pathfinder, abandoned decades before); and finally he must finesse a way to drive his short-range land rover 3,200 kilometers to another landing site and possible salvation. Each step of the way, Watney helpfully fills us in on what he’s doing via a video diary — it’s a hoary technique, but effective. While Mars (filmed in Jordan) is stark and picturesque, it’s only there as backdrop. No time for reflections on solitude or the thrill of exploration or the meaning of the universe — for Watney, there are only calculations and improvised fixes, with mental acrobatics and honest sweat equally important. Think Mr. Fix-it instead of Robinson Crusoe. “What does it do to a man psychologically?” Mission Director Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wonders aloud back on Earth, ruminating on Watney’s isolation, and in the next moment we see Watney getting down with some disco tunes left behind by mission commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain).
That cheekiness is the key to The Martian‘s appeal. Like Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 it’s a story about NASA defeat turned into triumph, but where Apollo 13, weighed down with Tom Hanks’ noble everyman performance, genuflected at the feet of America’s can-do spirit, The Martian takes its cue from Watney, going flip instead of earnest. Cracking jokes in his video diaries, swearing on live international TV when he disagrees with NASA’s newest foolhardy scheme to keep him alive, and even allowing himself a few tears of frustration or release when the situation warrants it, this is the quintessential Matt Damon role. He represents the ideal of what it means to be an American in 2015: smart-alecky, on-the-ball, sensible and sensitive, and generally just a swell guy. Fortunately The Martian isn’t only about him — the movie is a paean to geeks everywhere, from the overworked jet propulsion lab guru (Benedict Wong) to the socially awkward astronomer (Donald Glover) and the chemist astronaut who has to throw together a bomb at a crucial moment (Aksel Hennie). Despite the starry cast, not everyone is allowed to shine — Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig (as a NASA PR guru) don’t have much to do except look concerned, and the crew of astronauts (apart from Kate Mara’s impish Johannsen) don’t make much of an impression. Still, the movie is an unexpected celebration of multiculturalism, as folks from all races and nationalities grab a piece of the glory: crack pilot Martinez (Michael Peña, getting the chance to dial it down for once), Sean Bean as a crotchety yet humane flight director, and even a bigwig in the Chinese space program (Eddy Ko) who helps out with a prototype booster rocket.
“It’s space. It doesn’t cooperate. I guarantee you that at some point, everything’s going to go south on you. You’re going to say, ‘This is it. This is how I end.’ Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.”
Throughout, Scott keeps the momentum flowing from one crisis to the next, going multimedia in his presentation: time-lapse photography, cameras mounted on suits, mission control and satellite TV screens. He’s never lost his style as a director, but too often in recent years he’s been unable to find a match between that style and his material, or he’s been saddled with irredeemable scripts (looking at you, Robin Hood and Exodus: Gods and Kings). Here he’s in a riffy, playful mood, content to reference other movies (he throws in a sly reference to Bean’s work in The Lord of the Rings) as well as his own (a bit of self-surgery from Prometheus, a few atmospheric scenes and musical underscore reminiscent of Blade Runner). More importantly, he’s simpatico with Goddard’s frothy script — like Watney, he shares a passion (and obsession) with the technical stuff, and working things out with spit and duct tape. His slick yet amiable direction puts a Brit spin on the story’s brash American heroics: Keep calm, and let’s kick this problem in the ass. Or as Damon quips after another hard day of survival, “Fuck you, Mars.”
The Martian isn’t necessarily the smartest movie — there’s a certain amount of dumbing-down for the audience (How many days of food does Watney have left? We’ll keep repeating that number so everyone gets it), the soundtrack goes for the obvious way too often (“Starman,” “Hot Stuff” for a scene involving uranium, “Don’t Leave Me This Way”), and the humor can get labored — but it’s a darned sight more clever than most films of its ilk. The Martian‘s lightweight feel-good vibes don’t stamp it as an important film; of the recent major sci-fi movies to come down the pike (Interstellar, Gravity), it’s easily the slightest. It’s also easily the most fun. The movie concludes with the equivalent of a Christmas card greeting: another space ship shot into the heavens, scored with the happy-time boppin’ of the O’Jays’ “Love Train,” followed up with — of course — Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” It’s a long way from Alien to ’70s disco, but for once, Ridley Scott is comfortable just grooving along.
