The Martian

I was not expecting to come out of this movie liking it. I thought I would be impressed with the visual effects but otherwise I was not really expecting much mostly because of the fact that I am not a fan of Matt Damon (probably because of those goddamn Jason Borne movies). I think the theme of abandonment on a planet, and the similar cast and vibe to interstellar (you know what I mean if you've seen Interstellar) also made me kind of wary of The Martian, simply because I thought it was going to be too much like it, and I am not one of those people who could watch Interstellar twice. But, as my friends and I were deciding between seeing Black Mass and The Martian, they raised some points about the other cast members and the scientific accuracy of it and the visuals and they outnumbered me, so we saw the Martian, and I did not have any strong feelings against it.

Overall, The Martian was a good movie. There were some parts that blew me away, and there were some parts that confused me and that I really just did not need to see. They pretty much evened each other out and even tipped the scale to an above average movie. Yes, the visuals were incredible and I was constantly wondering what was the set and what was CGI/green screen. Yes, the acting was great, the cast was star speckled, and oh my GOD that soundtrack was phenomenal, and I am willing to admit, most of my grievances with this movie were personal, but they really bothered me and ultimately prevented me from fully enjoying The Martian.

Let me just get all the great things about this movie out of the way. A large part of the set is Mars and not just one part of Mars where their space home base is; he takes a rover/car around to all kinds of places on Mars and so the setting on Mars is changing constantly, especially towards the end. So the effects: great, awesome, amazing; I have no gripe with the technical bits of the visuals. The cast was amazing (Kristen Wigg, Donald Glover, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Matt Damon, Sean Bean) so obviously the acting was amazing as well. I was not shocked by the acting simply because I had quite high expectations and they were met; not surprised at all. The soundtrack was also incredible and so fun. The music you would totally expect from a lost in space movie was not the music in this lost in space movie; it was so fun and upbeat and believe me, there is nothing better than ABBA in a movie soundtrack. As a PG-13 movie, they use their two "fuck"'s up really quick, however, I thought it was really clever how they sneak all these other "fuck"'s into the movie without raising the rating to R; it's really just fun to watch them maneuver around the rating. There was one particular scene that thoroughly impressed me: when Matt Damon is about to getting rescued and is taking off, (not a spoiler; obviously he's getting off Mars they aren't making you sit through 2 hours of tense strategic game plan to rescue him just to have it not work especially when you know all the risk that goes into the rescue mission in the end) he almost made me cry. There was so much emotion in that scene and the close shot of him was so impactful; point being it was great.
Now, about those irritating elements. The most irritating part of the movie, and this is going to sound odd, but it was too funny and sarcastic. Maybe irritating isn't the right word for it, but the comical tone of this movie when someone may die in space because of abandonment just really put me off. And it was in the script; there were jokes and punchlines. It wasn't as if the actors just executed the lines in a sarcastic tone or way, they were jokes! Which I found totally inappropriate for the situation everyone was in! Even the super serious parts of the movie have jokes! It made me so maddeningly unsettled! Along the same lines is that Matt Damon's character was, however convincingly, unrealistically positive. He literally wakes up and realizes his whole team ditched him on Mars. Mars. But damn, he never had one ounce of denial, and he never even had a period of suicide or just giving up or not even trying to survive. Some lines of his include: "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this", "It's fatally dangerous, but I'd get to fly around like Iron Man", (after finding out he's really far away to be picked up) "I'll just wave to you guys as I pass by"; these are not the kind of things someone who may die on Mars would be saying! The second he realizes he's alone he immediately goes into survival mode, and he doesn't even cry until, like, the middle of the movie when the worst thing that could happen does happen. The one scene where I could have gone without seeing was when he wakes up in the Mars sand and realizes he's been harpooned by a satellite. He then goes back to the base and proceeds to pull it out of his abdomen, use pliers to take out a piece of metal inside of him, and then he staples himself shut (but doesn't scream/curse during any of it because it's a PG-13 movie), and they show all of it. I had both of my hands squeezing the side of my head and my mouth was wide open and I didn't watch most of it, but by the reaction of my friends and the rest of the theater, it seemed pretty hard to watch. I understand, they're all personal preferences, but they irritated me to the point where I couldn't enjoy the movie to the fullest.

Overall, this movie was a good movie. It was just little things that bothered me throughout the movie. I don't think I would have been too bothered by it all if it was only a few times where the tone was off, or where there were jokes at (what seemed to me) inappropriate times, but since it happened so frequently that it was basically throughout the whole movie, it really began to get on my nerves even before the halfway mark. Obviously, if you do not have the same irks with this as I do, you will most likely love this movie, because it is really good without all of my nitpick-y annoyances.
P.S. Watch out for the Sean Bean/Lord of the Rings reference!