It’s time for one of those big sci-fi films that reminds me why I would never want to travel to space. It’s just way too scary to think about being in outer space with no way back home. I don’t even like being on a boat where I could be stranded, let alone somewhere out of this world. Of course for those who do want to go into space, this is still a good watch of things to prepare for. I’m sure that not every fact will be correct here but I imagine that most of the details are probably right.

The film is about a crew who go to Mars but unfortunately a strong storm shows up out of nowhere. They are barely able to escape but what they don’t realize is that they left one of their own behind. Mark was presumed dead after taking a bit hit during the escape but he managed to survive. The next ship won’t be back to Mars for several years and the planet is infamous for not being able to sustain any kind of vegetation. Can Mark use his botany knowledge to change this fact or is he doomed to a slow death?

The premise is already a fun one because it gets the gears in your brain churning. Mark has enough food supplies to last for around half a year I believe and so he needs to grow enough crops for 3 years. Even under perfect conditions that would be tough and these conditions are anything but. For starters he will have to worry about the storms. If any big ones like that show up then he is absolutely dead. If he messes up on any of the formulas or math then he is doomed as well. Another condition is that Mark has to find a way to create water and he has a very limited amount of attempts to get this working. There are dozens and dozens of ways for this to go wrong and then you have to factor in how he is all alone. There is no google search and no other people here for advice. If he gets something wrong, then he has to solve it with no help.

These conditions are tough to deal with and it’s just lucky that he is a botanist. I wouldn’t know the first thing about creating water or setting up the planets so I would definitely be dead. As the film goes on Mark is able to find some breakthroughs and even manages to contact Earth. From this point the adventure is a lot easier but that is all relative. He still has to deal with being on a completely different planet and running out of food. The sheer mental stress from this would be intense.

The film is long but doesn’t feel slow because of how much information is coming through. So as long as you enjoy the general premise then you’re going to have a good time. Mark is also a pretty solid main character. He knows how to banter with the other characters and is mainly just doing his best in order to move forward. He does have a few moments where the stress gets to him but that makes sense. Also finding out that his teammates weren’t told about him surviving was something that would irritate everyone. The crewmates get some scenes of their own but for the most part don’t do much until the end. They seemed like a pretty strong group. You certainly hope you will get along with the people that you are stuck with in a rocket for long periods of time like this.

I always wondered if you have to do long personality tests or something with your group to make sure that everyone gets along. Finally we had the plot on Earth which is always a lot of fun because we get to see the politicians debating. Naturally they were not too thrilled at what was going on. There are a lot of risks involved to every possible decision here. If you decide to send another group to Mars, you may double the losses. Of course if you do nothing, then that’s a huge PR blow as well to just let one of your team die on Mars without any help.

There are a lot of debates on the Earth side and one character even has to go rogue to help Mark out. It’s one of those situations where playing it by the book would lower Mark’s chances of survival. However if everyone broke the rules like that, then things would be more dangerous in the long term. You always have to pick and choose when to go rogue and the ends don’t always justify the means. Of course as someone who says you shouldn’t leave anyone behind, I’d say to put the maximum amount of effort to save Mark.

While the film is clearly too fantastical to have been based on real events, I could picture a slightly toned down version of this to happen in real life someday. You certainly hope that nobody would be left behind or that a storm couldn’t derail an entire mission but these things happen. I like to think that a company like NASA certainly practices through scenarios like this.

Now technically I think the film would be more fun if there was a second character trapped on Mars so we could have the banter. That said, the film might have been tempted to squeeze in a romance plot at that point which would be really unnecessary. So perhaps this is for the best. I can also confirm that the situation is a lot scarier because Mark is alone. Even a single other person would take away part of the scare factor since no situation is quite as intense when you have backup.

Overall, The Martian is a pretty good film. It is certainly heavily focused on the science angle here but I thought that worked out really well. In general it’s fun to look at space and so the science around it gets interesting as well. The effects are pretty good and the film doesn’t really make any big mistakes here. I do think that it will lack a lot of replay value because of the nature of the film. It’s long and is all hinging on how the adventure goes. Once you know the ending, the build up will end up feeling a lot longer the second time around. I’d still recommend checking it out though because the first time it what counts.

Overall 7/10