Posted: 10/3/15 at 6:45pm
I saw this today and had pretty much the same reaction to it that I had to the book. It's a decent and mostly compelling story, but it's just too long. Matt Damon is good, and he makes the charter a lot more likeable than he was in the book. I found the book Mark Watney to be insufferable.
Posted: 10/4/15 at 12:46am
I'm gonna have to science the sh!t out of this
This is my new fav quote.
Updated On: 10/4/15 at 12:46 AM
Posted: 10/4/15 at 6:16am
Parts of it where story telling by numbers, , I hope nothing goes wrong, something does! The final twenty minutes or so is thrilling, but it could have been cut by a good thirty
Posted: 10/4/15 at 9:36pm
I have no idea what they could have cut. Everything in it was essential. Personally, I could have watched it for another hour.
Posted: 10/10/15 at 7:30pm
I really like the film... Even better than the book, which I rarely say. When reading the book, I found some parts really interesting... Like, how's he gonna get out of this??? But at times it grew tedious. The film cut out some of the problems he encounters, which really helped the pace for me. I never felt bored by the film. I was pretty fascinated throughout. Matt Damon was great. The film and book have such a feeling of optimism. It's like a big hug. I really liked it.
Spoilers...
I don't think this is a spoiler, but I gave warning...
At no time did I think Watney wasn't going to make it. It was never will he get out of this... It was always HOW will he get out of this. It's definitely more of a procedural film.
Mild spoiler...
Sean Bean at the Elrond meeting set my little geeky heart aflutter.
Updated On: 10/10/15 at 07:30 PM
Posted: 10/10/15 at 9:31pm
Thought it was pretty good. It looks fantastic and I didn't mind the runtime. However, Ridley Scott has a knack for getting the worst performances possible from his casts of usually talented actors. Sean Bean felt like he was still in Game of Thrones with his melodramatic acting. Nothing in the movie was quite as great as it should have been, but the final action set piece was great. Worth seeing if you're interested, though don't go running to catch it.
Posted: 10/10/15 at 9:49pm
Fantod said: "Thought it was pretty good. It looks fantastic and I didn't mind the runtime. However, Ridley Scott has a knack for getting the worst performances possible from his casts of usually talented actors. Sean Bean felt like he was still in Game of Thrones with his melodramatic acting. Nothing in the movie was quite as great as it should have been, but the final action set piece was great. Worth seeing if you're interested, though don't go running to catch it.
"
Sean Bean was perfect! Grrrr.
Posted: 10/11/15 at 4:16pm
We were really surprised at how much of a blast this flick turned out to be! Such a satisfying thing for a script to take real pains to explain what the science was and how it would work to solve each problem in a step-by-step way. Loved the visuals, loved the music mix, loved the light touch and joy Matt Damon brought to scene after scene-- best role he's done in ages.
Less good marks go to Jessica Chastain (insufferably noble) and Jeff Daniels (inexplicably villainous-- was a final scene of his comeuppance left on the cutting room floor?) If anything could have been cut, I would have happily sacrificed a few minutes of the needless strum and drang between Daniels and Sean Bean down at Nasa HQ when all we wanted to do was spend more time on Mars with Matt. But Donald Glover made a major contribution to the middle third of the pic with his awesomely off-center geek-genius.
All in all, a great crowd pleaser. This is the kind of movie to give "popcorn movies" a good name again. And to think the whole thing was shot in Hungary and Jordan!
Posted: 10/15/15 at 2:54pm
Read the book last week and was absolutely crazy about it. Loved every page. Went to the movie last night and really did not like it.
Biggest loss for me was how the book really gave you a feeling of the isolation Mark felt. As a reader the book started with him stranded and eventually you learned how it happened. Then it took a while for even the read to have contact with NASA/Earth. I kept thinking - what is everyone thinking on Earth? Are they doing anything about this. Unfortunately the movie didn't allow that.
The grand wide open visuals on the big screen also gave the movie viewer no feeling of being trapped. I was watching and thinking - oh how beautiful. Oh his space suit doesn't look all that confining. It's brighter than I visualized. While reading the book I didn't 'look' further then a few hundred feet. I kept thinking about the spacesuit on his body and the helmet over his head.
If you enjoyed the movie - please consider reading the book - so many awesome scenes were ripped out of the book and thrown on the floor...not to mention Mark's off color jokes! I loved the things he said and the script just dropped them - too many of them! What exactly was so bad that they couldn't say:
“Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world. [12:15] WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)”
WTF with the movie ending! He did not do the Iron Man 'save' in the book!
Biggest complaint was the end of the movie - the book had the most fantastic reflection by Mark about humanity and how it comes together at all cost even for one man. That was such an incredible and touching way to show how society can pull itself together for a common cause. Movie fell flat and missed that moment entirely.
"If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do. And because of that, I had billions of people on my side."
SO glad I read the book!
Updated On: 10/15/15 at 02:54 PM
Posted: 10/17/15 at 4:37pm
SO glad that there's now no point in reading the book, since you've told me every detail about it!
Posted: 10/17/15 at 7:31pm
Actually, no, he hasn't. . Some highlights do not make reading a book redundant. Read the book and see.
