The Martian review (trailer)

It is a vigorously realistic production that soars to great heights. Matt Damon, as astronaut and botanist Mark Watley, who is left behind on a Nasa Mars mission after an emergency evacuation, gives one of his best performances. He is on screen most of the time and shoulders the burden of having to maintain interest in a harrowing story about surviving on a hostile planet without knowing whether he would ever be rescued. In fact, his colleagues and bosses at Nasa at first think he had perished in an unrelenting blizzard.

He survives and then has to rig up a communications system to tell them he is alive. But before he can do this he has to remove a wire from a communications antenna that has lodged in his stomach. It’s all drama in outer space and veteran Scott handles it with style and conviction. The director’s signature style, not seen since Gladiator in 2000, is stamped all over the film, which gives enough character details to make the various entities in the drama convincing. Written by Drew Goddard and based on Andy Weir’s science-heavy novel, the film covers the same space-age elements that swept through Apollo 13 and the recent Gravity.

However, this story never grows dull as the powers at Nasa and the stranded astronaut desperately work out an intricate plan to get him home. Even the Chinese want to get in on the act and declassify a secret space programme to help.

Watley survives because he is very bright. As a botanist he knows how to grow potatoes, manufacturing water from hydrogen and create a greenhouse-enclosed garden (fertilised by the disappeared crew’s waste packets). He uses what left-over food he can find in “the Hub”, the oxygenated pod where he lives, to add to the dish. He also discovers a treasure chest of seventies and eighties disco music, left behind by Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain), which drives him insane.

There are no alien monsters prowling Mars and it’s fascinating to watch Watley negotiate the barren terrain in a specially built vehicle called Rover. Damon’s character grows on you, introducing optimism, a nerdy attitude and some craziness to his solo ordeal. It reminds one of Tom Hanks in Cast Away but here this actor commands the role with boyish, brainy confidence.

Jeff Daniels, who plays a role reminiscent of his character in the TV series The News Room, brings the same kind of gravitas as the head of Nasa who has to make crucial decisions regarding funds and the cost of a possible PR disaster, should things go wrong.

Jessica Chastain and Michael Pená share the return vessel with Kate Mara, Aksel Hennie and Sebastian Stan, while Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Donald Glover and a half-serious Kristen Wiig brainstorm from ground control in Houston.

Intellect triumphs over fear as the team work in harmony to bring Mark Watley home – even if it means Commander Lewis going rogue in the film’s exhilarating climax.