The Martian

The Martian is crowd pleasing science fiction! Matt Damon gets Mars-marooned and declares his very American plan to "science the shit out of it"! (For a different take on the same story, watch Gerry, in which Matt Damon science's the shit out of using a shirt-basket to make a dirt-mattress for Casey Affleck when he gets rock-marooned. Hahaha! I'm just kidding. Don't do that.)

The Martian has drama and puzzles and acting and wit and sarcasm in heaps. It is a thoroughly enjoyable ride. I thought the casting choices were interesting. Using Kristen Wig and Donald Glover so prominently was surprising to me, though I enjoyed them both. Now I can see that this allowed them to qualify as a comedy and win a Golden Globe! So, good work!

I enjoyed the contrast between the gray and austere presentation of NASA and the wacky perpetual casual friday that is JPL. JPL geniuses abound here in my hometown. I talk to them at backyard barbecues all the time and they totally got them right.

Matt Damon slays with his charm in this role and I got really wrapped up in his journey. Only late in the film did I start to feel like they were using my own love of sarcasm and wit against me. It began to slowly dawn on me that a real scientist, quirky though they may be, probably wouldn't be slinging one-liners quite so glibly. And a real scientist watching this film might feel like, "who is this asshole? He doesn't represent me!" And then I felt really sad for the plight of all the real scientists who have been stranded on other planets and maybe they were grumpy while they figured out a way to survive. And that's ok, too! We shouldn't just throw a slick face on science and ignore the real geniuses. 

Also? I had to remember that none of this has happened in real life and maybe I should calm down and just let myself enjoy a fun film. It's not like it's going to win an Oscar.