Film Review - The Martian

 

Sole Man

Film: The Martian

Cast: Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Duration: 2 hrs 21 mins
Rating: * * * * 

At 77, director Ridley Scott’s fascination with space and planets continues. He made Alien in 1979 and in circa 2015 it is The Martian. Much like George Miller earlier this year with Mad Max: Fury Road, it is impressive to see Scott so much in command of his craft, especially when back home, the career span of a director is barely ten or fifteen years. 

Based on the book by Andy Weir the story has a predictable trajectory of a man lost on another planet and then the subsequent efforts to bring him back. But it is all done in an entertaining manner and Scott keeps you engaged throughout the 140 odd minutes.

Just as they are about to leave the red planet, the crew of the NASA mission are hit by a severe storm. Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets injured and in the following chaos he is presumed dead as the rest of the crew take off fearing the worst. 

But surprise surprise, Mark wakes up all alone as the solitary living creature on the planet and very little resources at his disposal. But not one to give up easily, he comes up with ingenious methods for survival including growing potatoes.

Meanwhile back on earth, NASA realizes that he is alive and sort of kicking but time is not on their side as it could take a while for essentials to reach him and years before a rescue mission can get there. The odds are against Mark but given the nature of the film you know that he will see it through not before he hits some major roadblocks. 

By and large the pace is consistently maintained – the focus never stays too long on Mars where he has to fight for survival and keep his sanity intact or on earth where NASA headed by their chief (Jeff Daniels) and other scientists (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean) are trying their best to rescue him. The scene keeps cutting between these two places in the right measure. 

Even though Mark is stranded with no help in sight, there is an element of humor and positivity that runs through him – he keeps recording video logs of his day to day activities, hates disco music but since there isn’t much to choose from, he ends up listening to it.   

When things start looking good, David Bowie’s Starman makes an appearance on the soundtrack (maybe they deliberately left out Bowie’s Life on Mars that would have been too literal).

It’s hard not to think of Interstellar or Gravity, two remarkable contemporary films set in space, but the similarities end there.  This doesn’t have the complexity of the former or the intensity of the latter.

They have cast some terrific actors though, many of them, like Jessica Chastain don’t have a great deal of screen time but are effective all the same. Matt Damon is eminently likable in the lead role and contributes immensely in making The Martian worth a trip to the theatres. 

Published in The Navhind Times on 4th Oct. 2015
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Film Review - Interstellar

2014: A Space Odyssey

Film: Interstellar

Cast: Mathew McConaughey, Anen Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Duration:  2 hr 49 mins

Rating: * * * * 1 /2

Few directors make exciting films in Hollywood like Christopher Nolan does. Right from his debut, the low budget Following (1998) to the Batman blockbusters and mind benders like Inception Nolan’s films have been a cut above the rest. He has always been pushing the boundaries and with Interstellar, he has pushed it even further.

This film is likely to down in history as one of the best science fiction films ever made along with the likes of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is hard to ignore the influence of that Kubrick classic in terms of scale and opulence.

Moreover, Interstellar is not a science fiction fantasy, it is science fiction and as good as it gets on the silver screen. Some might complain that there is a too much of it to comprehend but then we’d rather have it that way than have a diluted film. 

The film opens in an unspecified time in the future- it could be half a century later or more, we don’t know. We know that all is not well and the whole of earth is in turmoil. Famine has struck, there are blights on crops, food has become scarce and what are mostly left are corn fields. A former NASA astronaut Cooper (Mathew McConaughey) has also taken up to farming because NASA has been shut down. He lives with his teenage son Tom, daughter (Murphy) and father in law (John Lithgow).  In what appeared to be a nod to Hitchcock, he even chases a low flying drone (Indian made) through the corn fields.

After a chain of interesting events he discovers that NASA is still alive and kicking albeit they are functioning secretly. Prof. Brand (Michael Caine) Cooper’s ex-colleague is in-charge and since mankind is on the verge of extinction they have a couple of plans. Plan A is to pack up as many humans as possible and send them to a colony in space and if that fails, the option is to use frozen embryos to start afresh on another planet or maybe galaxy. 

Copper embarks on a journey along with Prof. Brands daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and couple of other colleagues and a smart Alec robot called TARS. The journey is long and arduous; they have to go to a worm hole near Saturn which will take them to the ‘other side’. About a decade ago, other astronauts were sent in search of inhabitable places but their fate is unknown. 

It is not only about the science and the expedition. There are a lot of personal equations involved. Cooper may or may not come back to earth but he has a choice of either staying back with his kids or make an attempt to save mankind. His daughter Murphy (Jessica Chastain) always holds a grouse against him for making the latter choice.  At an early stage, the plot involves the concept of ‘ghosts’ which is very cleverly resolved at the end. 

There are some fascinating science concepts involved as well – The Tesseract is far more complex than the plain vanilla we have seen in the Avengers. The Bootstrap paradox (named after Robert Heinlein’s short story) also is ingeniously used and in the gripping finale even after paying undivided attention, it is likely that everything may not be clear. 

While Nolan’s attention to the details and visuals is incredible the music by Hans Zimmer adds its own dimension to the overall experience. Zimmer has not used much of string instruments yet it a grand feel to it. 

Of the cast, the supporting cast of Michael Caineis reliable as always. He also gets to deliver one of the most memorable lines in the film –“I am an old Physicist, I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of time.” Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway are rock solid. Mathew McConaughey’s seems to be on a roll these days. First he won the Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club and this performance is most likely to give him at least a nomination this time. 

Interstellar is a one of its kind experience at the cinema theatres. And on a side note, remember what Dylan Thomas said about not going gently into the good night. 

Published in The Navhind Times on 9th Nov 2014

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