The Martian (2015) review

Ridley Scott is without a doubt one of the most prolific directors working today in Hollywood. He’s directed numerous cinematic classics over the span of nearly four decades, from a pair of critically acclaimed sci-fi films in 1979’s ‘Alien’ and 1982’s ‘Blade Runner’ to 2000’s Best Picture-winning swords-and-sandals epic ‘Gladiator’. But in recent years, some may argue that Scott’s filmography has experienced a decline in terms of quality. His 2010 collaboration with his ‘Gladiator’ star Russell Crowe, ‘Robin Hood’, ended up being a critical/commercial disappointment upon release. He fared better, for the most part, in 2012 with ‘Prometheus’, a ‘prequel’ to the ‘Alien’ franchise that he had originally kick-started, but the film has since become one of the most polarizing films of the last few years. After that, his next two films, 2013’s ‘The Counselor’ and last year’s ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’, both ended up getting generally trashed by critics. This year, however, it looks like Scott has a major success on his hands with his newest film, ‘The Martian’. Based off of the 2011 novel of the same name by Andy Weir, ‘The Martian’ centers on an astronaut who must survive on Mars after he gets left behind by his crew. What follows is a highly engaging and smartly written story of survival highlighted by a terrific lead performance.

The film opens up with the crew of the Ares III while they are in the middle of a manned mission on Mars. When an intense dust storm hits their area, they are forced to evacuate. However, during the return to their ship, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is separated from the group when he gets knocked away by debris. Presumed dead, the rest of his crew, led by Ares III commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), end up leaving the planet without him. But, unbeknownst to both them and NASA, Watney actually did survive and is now trapped on the Red Planet. With no way of contacting NASA and being forced to deal with the limited resources of his crew’s artificial habitat, which wasn’t designed to last for the amount of time it would take for another NASA mission to return for him, Watney is tasked with finding a way to grow food ‘on a planet where nothing grows’. Being an experienced botanist, Watney begins to ‘science the s*** out of the situation’ while also working to get back into contact with NASA. Once he manages to achieve both of these goals, the staff at NASA, as well as Watney’s crew, begin working on a way to get Watney home safe and sound.

This film has been getting a lot of attention for being ‘scientifically accurate’, from the way that Watney is able to produce water while on Mars to a scene in which he has to patch up his helmet when it cracks. And while it’s undoubtedly a very smart film, it never tries to overcomplicate matters. Some of the film’s scientific elements may fly over the heads of some people but at the same time it never talks down to them. Also, for a film that’s, at its core, a story of survival against all odds in one of the harshest environments imaginable, it’s actually not that intense, at least when compared to 2013’s big space survival film ‘Gravity’. Yes the main character is in a difficult situation and there are definitely some tense moments layered throughout the film but it ultimately maintains a generally light-hearted tone throughout, which is primarily due to Watney’s optimistic attitude, his witty video logs, and his clear disdain for Commander Lewis’ library of disco music. All of this results in a film that’s actually quite funny at times, which is something that one wouldn’t normally expect from director Ridley Scott as most of his other films are much more serious in tone.  

Obviously the key to the entire film is Matt Damon’s performance in the lead role of Watney and Damon more than succeeds in that regard. Damon of course is on his own for the majority of the film’s run-time and pretty much single-handedly carries the entire film on his back. As Watney, he’s very likable, even when he acts rather cocky, and you genuinely do root for him to succeed. Damon’s so good in this that the film’s ‘weakest’ points are basically the instances where he’s not on-screen. Now, for the record, I’m not completely criticizing the scenes of the film that focus on either some of the major employees at NASA, including NASA head Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) and engineer Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), or the other members of Watney’s crew (Chastain, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Sebastian Stan, and Aksel Hennie). The ensemble cast is great all around but perhaps there are just a bit too many characters to keep track of. Sure the film actually does manage to credit all of the major supporting characters in the film but at the end of the day, it is Watney who gets the most amount of character development. Again I’m not holding that against the film too much but admittedly the best scenes are with Watney and when he’s not on-screen, that’s when this almost two-and-a-half hour film tends to drag.

‘The Martian’ is a science-fiction film that very much emphasizes science over fiction. It’s a very smartly-written story that conveys its science in a way that’s easily accessible to the audience without ever becoming too convoluted. The film is consistently compelling throughout its hefty 141-minute runtime and is even rather humorous due to its light-hearted tone and witty screenplay courtesy of Drew Goddard. But at its core, it carries the simple themes of optimism, ingenuity, and the will of the human spirit to overcome adversity even when the odds are stacked against them. And as I’ve stated earlier this year in my review of ‘Tomorrowland’, we definitely need more sci-fi films like that; ones that convey messages/themes of hope and optimism over fear of the apocalypse. Matt Damon absolutely shines in the lead role of Mark Watney and is backed up by an excellent ensemble cast, even if at the end of the day he’s the one that gets the most attention and scenes without him tend to drag a little. Simply put, ‘The Martian’ is easily the best film that Ridley Scott has made in years; a very well-crafted sci-fi adventure/survival film that might even compel future generations to take up an interest in space.

Rating: 4.5/5

(P.S. This film has one of the most perfect end-credit songs ever!)

Fantastic Four (2015) review

Debuting in November 1961 as the first major superhero team developed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four have been one of Marvel’s most famous franchises as far as the comics are concerned. But as for their track record on the big screen, Marvel’s First Family has not been as successful compared to other Marvel franchises such as Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, or even lesser-known characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy. It all began in 1994 when famous B-movie producer Roger Corman produced a low-budget adaptation of ‘The Fantastic Four’. But because either the production company behind it, Constantin Film, just made it to keep the film rights or Marvel stepped in so that it wouldn’t ‘ruin the franchise’, that film was never released in theaters and is currently only viewable on the internet in bootleg quality. 20^th Century Fox would eventually get a ‘Fantastic Four’ film into theaters in 2005 with the Tim Story directed ‘Fantastic Four’. The film was successful enough financially to warrant a sequel, ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’, in 2007. But while both films performed solidly enough at the box-office, they were also generally disliked by both critics and audiences, primarily for their overtly goofy attempts at humor, some questionable casting choices (i.e. Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman), and, in the case of the sequel, one of the worst changes from the comics in superhero film history in regards to the portrayal of Galactus.

Cut to 2015, 8 years after the release of ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’. Fox is back again with their second major attempt at launching a ‘Fantastic Four’ film franchise. And compared to the previous two films, this one really showed some potential due to who was working on it. It was to be directed by Josh Trank, who was fresh off of 2012’s excellent found-footage flick ‘Chronicle’. It was to be produced by Matthew Vaughn and Simon Kinberg, who were both fresh off of playing a major role in the resurrection of the ‘X-Men’ franchise with 2011’s ‘First Class’ and later ‘Days of Future Past’. And it would feature an excellent group of leads playing the Fantastic Four in Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell. But, as is typical with any film in the superhero genre, this one was subjected to some heavy scrutiny by comic book fans in the months leading up to its release. As is also common with this genre, the casting was one of the major points of controversy amongst fans, primarily the casting of Michael B. Jordan in the role of the Human Torch, who is usually portrayed as a white man in the comics. Additional rumors including major deviations from the source material (including the supposed change of Doctor Doom into a hacker), confirmed reshoots, and rumors of Trank being ‘abrasive’ during the shoot also aroused suspicion that this was going to turn out to be nothing more than a mess. And now that the film has come out… well, unfortunately those fears are well-founded as this new ‘Fantastic Four’ ultimately ends up being a ‘fantastic’ disaster.

In 2007, young Reed Richards dreams of becoming the first human in existence to teleport. With the help of his best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), Reed (Miles Teller) starts to develop a prototype for a teleportation device. That prototype ends up attracting the attention of Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) of the Baxter Foundation, who recruits Reed to help work on a special teleportation device developed by Storm’s old protégé Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Along with Storm’s children Sue (Kate Mara) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), Reed helps get the machine operational but is disappointed to learn that he won’t be part of the initial voyage to the alternate dimension (referred to as ‘Planet Zero’) that the teleporter is set to head to. But the night before this is set to happen, Reed, Johnny, Victor, and Ben end up taking an unsanctioned trip to Planet Zero so that they could have their chance at using the machine that they created. Once there, chaos ensues and Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Sue (who didn’t come with them but was affected when the device returned to Earth) find themselves with strange new abilities; Reed can stretch his body to great lengths, Sue can turn invisible and generate force fields, Johnny can engulf himself in flames and can fly, and Ben is transformed into a powerful rock-like creature. With these new powers, the four must band together when Victor returns from Planet Zero hell-bent on the destruction of the Earth.

It is very much clear that the theatrical cut of this film was the result of Fox taking away creative control from Josh Trank, which I presume was due to them not having any faith in his vision for the film, which probably included all of those alleged major deviations from the comics (i.e. Doom being a hacker). As a result, the film as it is now definitely feels like the haphazard final product of this meddling. There are quite a few instances of continuity errors (most notably Sue’s changing hairstyle) and the film’s pacing feels off. Ultimately that leads into the film’s biggest issue… it is extremely dull and lacks the visual spark that one can expect from films of this genre. From what I hear, Fox actually cut out at least three major action sequences from the film just days before shooting was set to begin. Uh Fox, you do realize that action sequences are the bread and butter of this genre, right? But apparently they forgot about that because this has to be one of the most boring superhero films that I’ve ever seen in my life. Pretty much all of the film’s action sequences (all 2 of them) happen at the end, which means that basically 80% of this ‘superhero film’ is nothing more than just scenes of exposition. The very much-dragged out buildup to the Four gaining their powers ultimately leads to terrible payoff and the final fight between them and Doom is laughably bland and insignificant. This emphasis on exposition instead of action was also an issue with the 2005 ‘Fantastic Four’ film but even that film had better pacing than this.

Another big issue is that the film is also pretty darn downbeat compared to, well, pretty much every other superhero film ever made. If I haven’t made it clear before, I’ve been rather hesitant about DC’s more serious approach to their superhero films to the point where they are apparently enforcing a ‘no joke’ mandate. But after watching this film, I can safely say that I’m pretty confident that DC will never go as far as this film did in terms of its overall tone. Trank has stated that David Cronenberg was a major influence in regards to how he approached how the Four would react to their transformations; in other words, it’s very much reminiscent of body horror. Now I do think that this is an interesting take on these characters and you can definitely see that in the initial scenes of them with their powers, which are arguably the best scenes in the entire film. But ultimately those are the only moments where this concept is utilized. As a whole, the film is very drab in its overall look and feel, lacking the humor and charm that one can expect from, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are some attempts at humor throughout the film but most of them end up falling flat. Hell, what I’d argue is the best line from the trailer, where Johnny remarks about how he’ll need ‘a heat-resistant workshop and a big-ass sunroof’… isn’t even in the film. Whereas the previous ‘Fantastic Four’ films were a bit too goofy, this film is just too damn serious.

Now I wouldn’t be ‘too annoyed’ with the darker approach if the characters were well-developed. But unfortunately they aren’t and again it’s due to the film’s terrible pacing. Not long after the initial incident they literally cut to one year later, glossing over what should have been essential moments of character development. In fact, it isn’t even until the end of the film when the Four are actually all together on-screen. As a result, you never get a sense of the familial relationships between the main four that define who they are in the comics whatsoever; the friendship of Reed and Ben, the romance between Reed and Sue, etc. And it’s sad because, contrary to popular opinion, I think that the film was well-cast in regards to the main Four. Teller, Mara, Jordan, and Bell have all proven to be some of the best actors/actresses of their generation but unfortunately they’re all pretty much wasted here. And I think that they did a good job in casting Doctor Doom by going with Toby Kebbell, who last year really stood out as Koba, the main villain of ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’. It’s too bad then that Kebbell is majorly underused here. After the incident, Doom is not seen again until the end of the film and by that point there’s absolutely no motivation for his actions other than ‘he’s just evil’. For the record, that is the third straight time that one of Marvel’s most iconic villains has been butchered on the big screen, from being an absolute wuss in the 1994 ‘Fantastic Four’ film to the overly cheesy Doom of the 2000’s ‘Fantastic Four’ films to finally the highly underdeveloped baddie of this ‘Fantastic Four’ film.

Now let me be clear; while it’s obvious that Josh Trank was majorly screwed over by Fox in regards to him losing creative control over what would turn out to be a quite aimless final product, at the end of the day we may never know if his ‘version’ of the film would’ve been any better. This may have just been a case of a young director who was simply unprepared to handle a big-budget blockbuster like this, hence why Fox seemed to have had little faith in what he did with it. Ultimately though, I don’t blame Trank for the fact that this new version of this new ‘Fantastic Four’ film that we got is… just terrible. This film is just not entertaining and not just because it is severely lacking in terms of action sequences, which is something that you really don’t want for a film in the superhero genre, but because it’s also quite dour. Ultimately, it’s just boring; thankfully the film is only 100 minutes long and it actually does fly by rather fast. But at the end of the day, that also means that the film fails to make any major impression whatsoever. And that’s really sad given how many good people worked on it and while I know that a lot of people were hesitant about this film, I was actually really optimistic and hopeful that this film was going to be good and prove its critics wrong. But at the end of the day, it just ends up being a major disappointment, continuing the mediocre track record of the ‘Fantastic Four’ on the big screen. On the bright side, maybe Marvel’s First Family will have greater luck when their film rights are inevitably reacquired by Marvel Studios.  

Rating: 1/5

(P.S. To put this rating into perspective, I gave both the 1994 unreleased low-budget ‘Fantastic Four’ film and both of the early 2000’s ‘Fantastic Four’ films higher ratings than this… now that’s saying something)