I recently went to see the new movie “The Martian.” Seeing as I have generally no interest in science and am perpetually afraid of the idea of outer space, I was definitely not expecting to enjoy the experience. However, as I was leaving the theater, I realized that I had been very mistaken. I actually loved the movie, and I’ve found myself thinking about its storyline and themes days after seeing it.
The premise is that astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets left on Mars in the midst of a storm while his crew conducts an emergency evacuation. In the midst of the storm, he is struck by a broken piece of the ship, and is punctured in the abdomen which not only injures him, but also sucks the oxygen out of his suit. He is presumed dead by the whole world, but he actually wakes up alive, and continues to survive on the planet in an effort to make contact with Earth. The story is about his strategy to living and NASA’s race to rescue him.
These futuristic, outer space-type movies have been all the rage lately, and I’ve discovered that many of them contain the same situations and basis: there’s always someone with a lover or a family who ends up in a life or death situation in space, they reach a dramatic breaking point where they’re ready to give up, and then they magically find the endurance to continue struggling until everything works out and they end up back on earth.
The reason why I loved “The Martian” so much was because it contained the same suspense, action, and excitement that movies such as “Gravity” or “Interstellar” have, but it spent less time focusing on the melodrama and the fake emotions. Rather than watching the characters feel bad for themselves, the movie showed more of Mark Watney trying to figure out how to survive, and showing the different strategies he uses to overcome his struggles.
I also really enjoyed the themes that were highlighted throughout the movie, and I thought they were very tangible and easy to interpret from the storyline. The idea of endurance and perseverance were definitely emphasized, because even though pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong, Mark Watney and NASA continued to do everything they could to succeed without giving up once.
Essentially, because I have very little knowledge in the realm of space and science, I was comparing this movie only to the other space movies I’ve seen in the past because that pretty much encompasses my experience in that field. I thought there was a really good balance between the science and the drama, and overall the movie was very well filmed and the actors were amazing. It is definitely a movie that I would recommend to anyone, whether they’re very interested in sci-fi or not.