Thumps from 1 to 5: Thumps of 4.
The Martian movie with Matt Damon who plays Mark Watney is entertaining, but is not an Oscar contender. The movie is based on a novel, The Martian, by Andy Weir. I am not sure if the writers of the screenplay changed the novel, but they had a lot to work with, a good looking healthy man with a comedic flare alone on Mars, but failed to deliver the sorts of meaningful human experience that should have encompassed this movie in order to put this one on the map. Rather than mark the movie as uniquely its own, the film made allusions or paid homage to a previous space movie, Apollo 13 in which one of the main actors, Jeff Daniels also made a previous appearance in that film.
I enjoyed the disco tunes, and the comedic moments with Matt Damon, and he did deliver it well. It is true, I watched the film in 3D, and if you have motion sickness beware, this will get your stomach tipsy, nauseate it a bit, and throw your equilibrium on its side. It is unfortunate with all those possible distortions that the writers did not take the audience for a real ride. It was a film that could have been, but failed to deliver the momentous goods. Ridley Scott, the Director played it fast and loose as he is notorious for doing, but without a well written script, it did not matter who is behind the camera. Ridley Scott did an excellent job, Matt Damon and the other actors delivered polished performances, but the script was lacking in substance; by the writers paying homage to a previously successful movie, and adding the Chinese emerging aerospace program; it scapegoated and undermined an otherwise ripe screenplay full of potential possibilities, which remain undelivered.
