Mark Kermode reviews The Martian

the story is uh there are there's a an exploratory mission on Mars collecting stuff and bits and dust and doing things and doing exploratory stuff and suddenly in the middle of it all there is a what do we call it a scientifically anomalous but narratively necessary storm that'll do that's very good uh and uh the because the storm is coming it's going to knock the spaceship over everyone has to get onto the spaceship and abandon Mars but due to uh flying debris and all manner of stuff Matt Damon's character Mark Wat who is the sort of the C who is the Martian of the title obviously he's not a martian just what in his red planet oh I wish I'd thought of that did you did you halfway through the second I've seen it twice now so halfway through the second time I thought oh I'll do that oh that's so annoying that you thought that it's only appropriate for listeners of a certain age they go what what's what in is red planet okay I'm now going to be crossed for the whole of the rest of the show put it in for your uh for your newspaper what these red anyway oh okay fine so uh they they they think that he is dead so they they take off because they have to they've got no other choice Jessica Chastain is the is the captain got no other choice other than to take off believing him to be dead they take off turns out of course he's not dead they start heading back meanwhile he realizes that he is there for the Long Haul because it being Mars any rescue mission is like years away we're talking hundreds of days or Souls as they have in Mars the solar days and so he starts um firstly he attempts to let people know that actually he is still there and he isn't but more importantly he realizes that he has a very limited number of rations and the time that he is there is going to be longer than the rations that he has so he starts making a video diary of how he is going to in his own words not die here's a clip right let's do the math our service Mission here was supposed to last 31 souls for redundancy they send 68 Souls worth of food that's for six people so for just me that's going to last 300 Souls which I figure I can stretch to 400 if I ration so I got to figure out way to grow 3 years worth of food here on a planet where nothing grows luckily I'm the botanist Mars will come to fear my botney Powers so that's that's the setup you're laughing already okay so I think it's I think it's great you can you can hear The Whimsy you can so basically what he has to do is he has to not die for long enough for firstly to establish uh some form of contact with with with mission control with with Earth secondly to what are you doing I'm putting on my Martian helmet I see okay so for those listening and wondering why Simon suddenly sounds like he's in a goldfish Bowl you have just put on this is actually Matt Damon's helmet no it's not it is no signed by Matt Damon it says it's actually signed by Ridley Scott it's not signed by Matt Damon that's why that's why it says Ridley Scott on it it's officially authenticated as Matt Damon's helmet are you actually wearing Matt Damon's helmet the helmet was designed by jant just broken it janty Yates who's worked with Ridley Scott on Exodus gods of Kings uh Prometheus Robin Hood American Gangster kingdom of heaven and Gladiator and he made this helmet this is Matt's helmet I am Matt Damon when Matt Damon steps out the shower that's just what I look like I just want to tell you that you think what I think is that everyone listening on the radio and not actually looking at you with your head in a goldfish Bowl which has been signed by Ridley Scott is going to wonder why this bit of radio it's a live stream special it's a okay fine and a Snapchat special okay sorry have I put you off no no that's absolutely fine I just love the idea of conducting the rest of this review whilst you've got your head in a large plastic casing with Ridley Scott's name written on it Frank side bottom all over again it is oh I'm the Maran yes I am I really am if you keep the front of it off then it's okay then I can actually you look ridiculous I know I'm going to carry on though okay so uh so basically what he then has to do is he has to stay alive whilst firstly making contact with Earth secondly waiting for them to develop to figure out whether or not it's possible to get something you know up to Mars to keep him alive long enough for them to send another mission which is coming in sometime and all the time what he has to do is to fight the elements and the first thing he does is he realizes that he has to goow as he said that thing he has to grow three years worth of supplies he finds a bag of potatoes but there is apparently nothing grows on Mars but he discovers that actually what they have is the the waste from the toilet and of course that like anything else is some form of fertilizer so the first thing he ends up doing basically is seeing whether it's possible to grow potatoes in poo and meanwhile the only you've been waiting for that line for a while but it's true and meanwhile the only thing he has to keep him entertained is old reruns of Happy Days and Jessica Chastain's collection of uh of archaic Dance Floor fillers which he says he hates and there's kind of Guardians of the Galaxy thing going on in as much as it's got these sort of retro pop stylings that are completely out of sync with you know the with with the futuristic nature of the tail I really enjoyed it I really I really enjoyed it so much so in fact that I and I haven't said this for a long time I could have sat down and watched the whole thing again from the beginning immediately afterwards and the reason is this firstly it's lovely to have a Ridley Scott movie in which it which is this well written the fact of the matter is Ridley Scott is a great visualist and a great World Builder but he has if you look at the you the screenplay for Prometheus the screenplay for the counselor I me the counselor you know which is extraordinary uh it should be so much better than it is and yet it's terrible you look at Exodus gods and Kings these are films which are stodgy and ponderous and you know we played a clip from the counselor all that stuff about the the temperature of trust and this that and the other how wonderful to have a script which and I think absolutely Drew Godard who is the screenwriter and Andy we's book that it's based on and I haven't read Andy we's book but I know that your younger said that best book ever well what Drew God has done is managed to take whatever is brilliant in that book and put it on the screen in a way which is genuinely Snappy and funny and it was so terrific cuz if you look back over Ridley Scott's career all the great works are all built on screenplays you look at Cali Curry screenplay for theler and Louise you look at the Hampton faner David web PE stuff for Blade Runner all of that stuff is built on brilliant screenwriting it's there's never any question about whether Ridley Scott is a great visual stylist of course he is actually even the question about whether Ridley Scott is an actor director has long since been laid to rest I know when he was making Blade Runner people said well you know he's more interested in the tech technical details in is that hasn't been true for ages that hasn't been true since Elmer and Louise he's he can get great stuff the but if the script isn't good the films will end up not being and sometimes I think that the the thing with him is that he sees so so much of what he does his visual that he hasn't actually got the best eye or the best ear for a really good screenplay so in this case it's the best written thing he's done in ages and that he's worked with ages from Drew Drew God OD script and as a result of it it's the best film because it's funny because it's actually it it leaps off the screen in a sort of joyous Jolly way it doesn't have all that Prometheus ear scraping dialogue about the non-existence of God and the role of extraterrestrial Engineers or whatever they were called it doesn't have all that kind of ponderous don't say what what was wearing that helmet because it puts me off cuz you just look like a complete plank thank you very much thank you very much um it it doesn't have that what it has is a character that you care about and I have to say that Matt Damon does it rather well he is both charming and funny I mean there's there's an awful lot of you know I'm stuck here on Earth luckily I'm the best botanist I'm the best botanist on the whole planet there's a all that stuff works really well and what you're interested in is firstly how is he going to do it how is he going to not die how is he going to stay alive how is he going to grow the potatoes how is he going to not run out of how is he going to make the journey that he has to make to the other place where where apparently the the supplies are going to be sent to and the pop science in it the nice thing about the pop science in it is it it's all just credible enough to be believable I mean I know it's sort of well researched and everything but there's obviously when you're turning this stuff into movie so there's a lot of stuff but you you have to take out the technical stuff you have to make you have to make it sound just interesting enough to be to be credible to an audience but not too techy or so that people start get getting fussed about it and you and I have talked about the fact that apparently you know the the Storm at the beginning okay well fine that's a liberty but you know he needed he needed something to get them off the planet and a storm was going to do and as we mentioned in the interview with Ridley last week he that was Andy we that's the guy who exactly exactly exactly and it doesn't matter because that's fine that's a but but for the rest of it you are thinking oh how is he how is he going to make water oh then then there's a sort science experiment element to it and I actually I think Young of you is going to see it will Come Away With A Renewed interest in science and biology and well you know as and botany and and astronomy and of course actually nobody could have nobody could have built into all this the fact that there's been all these news stories recently about real Mars I mean you can just see the pr people for the Martian going I'm sorry that is just absolutely brilliant and people have started discovering stuff so that all works very well meanwhile the other side of the story which is populated by extremely good actors of CH for Jessica Chastain who actually does a really good line in she's the captain she's the captain she has to be sorry you just held up to because you're having your photograph taken and I you put me off I I do apologize she's the captain and she feels terribly guilty and responsible for leaving Matt Damon behind leaving Mark watney's watney's red planet behind but on the other hand she's also very very practical and she has to make decisions about what the rest of the crew do so her Michael Pena Jeff Daniels uh Kristen Wick I mean really good actors in what are essentially second string roles so I like all of them I know some of it does some of it feels a little bit like okay well we got to make this work how are we going to do it but actually what the film is about is defeating the universe with string and glue I mean there's a lovely sort of DIY feel to it which I like I also like the fact that the the the visually to look at it's you know it's those ochre Sands it's the it's the white Interiors it's the great black of space and the third Act is basically a sort of Riff on Alphonso quon's gravity so it starts off sort of being Silent Running and it starts off being rather Apollo 13 you know we've blown something up how are we going to fix it I will the guys down on Earth will do it and they'll tell us how to do it there's uh there's a little bit of Duncan Jones moon in there the idea that there's somebody on a planet who is uh you know talking to himself there's a weird echo of interstellar which is hey Matt Damon's on a planet miles away from Jessica Chastain you know that's the same and all that stuff doesn't matter it doesn't matter that it's referencing other films it actually adds to the charm of it and I think the charm is because it's really well written it's got a Charming Central performance the secondary performances are very very solid and the third act which is which is you know I mean it's it's a sort of it in much the same way as gravity is it's a silly third act but it's really really excitingly silly and I just I enjoyed it enormously I thought it was really good fun

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 226,194

Keywords: Ridley Scott, Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Peña, The Martian, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, BBC, 5live

Id: cxMkAAA41xM

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2015