Video review: "The Martian"

“The Martian” was formulaic, but also innovative. Those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

This space adventure story cribbed its plot from “Gravity,” “Cast Away” and similar tales of a person stranded in an inhospitable location and forced to innovate to stay alive and keep their body, and soul, nourished. Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a botanist stranded on Mars when a storm forces the evacuation of the rest of his team, who mistake him for dead.

But the film also took the unusual tack – borrowed from the novel by Andy Weir – of making this an incredibly joyful and even humorous journey. Even as we fret about Watney’s chances of living, since it will take any rescue mission years to reach him, we’re charmed by his easy humor and self-awareness.

Talking into video cameras for the sake of the mission logs, Damon makes jokes about becoming a “space pirate” when he borrows some international equipment, and records his efforts to grow food using some ingenious (but gross) techniques.

The film is essentially divided into two halves: the first mostly concentrates on Watney’s struggle to survive, and the second on the NASA scientists back on Earth trying to come up with a way to save him. This structure ends up being very important to the film’s success: we spend an hour getting to know Watney, so we can decide he’s worth the herculean effort to save him in the second hour.

Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard give us a humanistic disaster flick, filled with just enough darkness and peril for us to appreciate the light and laughter. Sometimes familiar stories can show a new and compelling face with the right turn.

Video extras are decent, though the lack of a definitive making-of documentary or commentary track is a bit vexing. The Blu-ray edition comes with a gag reel, gallery of production still photos, and a half-dozen or so featurettes focusing on translating the novel, casting the film, creating costumes and sets, and more.

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Review: "The Martian"

We're familiar by now with the standard attributes of the space disaster genre. "The Martian" checks them off one by one: astronaut marooned in the reaches of outer space, desperate struggles to survive, ingenuity overcoming dire circumstance, people back on Earth trying frenetically to puzzle out a solution, more unexpected setbacks, more spontaneous improvisation, death licking at the protagonist's heels, salvation.

What's different is the tone and the approach to storytelling. "The Martian" is exhilarating, joyous -- and surprisingly funny. If it's possible to make a feel-good movie about cheating death, then this is it.

Based on the novel by Andy Weir, the film is part "Gravity" and part "Cast Away." It leaves Matt Damon stranded on Mars, where he must survive for months and potentially years with limited resources. He wanders deep inside his own head, talking to himself constantly -- ostensibly for the station's video logs but mostly as a way to keep himself sane. Then the second half is about the effort, undertaken seemingly by the entire world, to rescue him.

What's interesting is that director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard don't make any attempt to get to know the characters before disaster strikes, jumping right into the mayhem. Much like "Mad Max: Fury Road," the story allows the characters to reveal themselves gradually over the course of a harrowing journey.

There's a mission on Mars -- third in a series of five, we're told -- and botanist Mark Watney (Damon) and the others are waylaid by a massive storm that requires they blast off early and return home. Watney is whacked unconscious by some debris, the others believe him dead, and have to leave before they themselves are killed.

From here the story turns to Watney's efforts to survive long enough to greet the next Mars landing, four years hence. But how to make his energy, oxygen, food, etc. last until then? He comes up with some pretty brilliant strategies, which I'll not reveal.

Damon is charismatic and grounded, in one of his finest performances.

Meanwhile, the NASA folks, having declared Watney dead to the world, must get things together on their end. How to establish communications with Mars? Should they devote their limited resources to saving one man? Should they tell the astronauts on their way home their comrade is still alive? They devise their own extravagant plans, a combination of altruism and covering their own asses.

On the ground, the key players include Chiwetel Ejiofor as the mission leader, passionate and aggressive; Benedict Wong as the beleaguered head of the engineers, called repeatedly upon to do things in the half the normal time; Kristen Wiig as the savvy PR gal; Sean Bean as flight commander, always advocating for the astronauts; Donald Glover as the young whiz kid with bright ideas; and Jeff Daniels as the stern NASA chief, balancing noble goals with miserly realities.

Eventually, of course, Watney's crewmates learn of his fate and must decide if they should risk their own necks to turn around and go back for him. Jessica Chastain is the decisive-yet-doubting commander; Kate Mara is the comms expert, keeper of others' secrets; Michael Peña is the pilot and resident smartass; Sebastian Stan and Aksel Hennie are the generic utility guys.

The two pieces of the movie, survivor's soliloquy and mass rescue endeavor, fit surprisingly well together. We spend the first hour getting to know Watney, growing to admire his grit and streak of humor. (Forced to commandeer some equipment while noodling around with the shadings of international maritime law, he declares himself "Mark Watney, space pirate.")

Having established in the audience's minds that Watney is worth saving, we're entirely caught up in the logistics of trying to bring him home. I think you can guess what the outcome is, but it's still a white-knuckled thrill ride getting there.