The Martian

The Martian – 141min – PG13

Matt Damon is back in space and this time he has to find a way to survive on Mars for as long as it’s going to take to get a rescue mission to him. This movie is a great example of how an engaging story can let the time slip by unnoticed. It is also a great examination of the human spirit and the ingenuity of a person who makes a choice to survive. This is such a great movie, I am taking my son to go see it today. A green light film should have production value, spectacular performances and be engaging. This move has all of that.

The manned mission to Mars is interrupted by a storm and the crew gets the evacuation orders. During the evacuation, Mark Watney (MattDamon) is struck by debris his communication and vitals monitoring systems are destroyed. Believing that he has died the crew go on with the evacuation and start their four month journey back to earth. He wakes up alone, on Mars with limited resources he now has to find a way to survive.

Some standout performances were Jeff Daniels who spectacularly played the Director of NASA. Chiwetel Ejiofor was again unfairly outperforming everyone on screen with him. Sean Bean does not die in this movie and it’s nice to see him finish a film without a death scene. Jessica Chastain shines as the captain of the mars mission. Really the entire cast all had strong performances but these were the ones that I truly enjoyed. There wasn’t a weak or miscast player in this production.

Not being an astronaut or a botanist I have to say from the laymen’s view, the science works out just fine. I enjoyed watching the science unfold and how math and engineering and a team effort helped Mark survive. The choice he made to survive and how he did it was also a great life lesson. You are going to die unless you solve this problem, solve it and move to the next problem. The specter of death was always present but the ingenuity and drive of a man’s will to survive can overcome many obstacles.

Neal deGrasse Tyson gave his blessing on keeping the science accurate in a series of tweets. I think his approval of the film validates that a movie can be entertaining and accurate. What it gives me as a viewer is the thought of I could do that. Nothing Watney does  is fantasy or fudged to make it a better story. Science is entertaining as it is.

Not seeing the 3D version I am unable to comment if if it added to the experience. I know that for some films 3D is more of a distraction and takes away from the story. When it is applied as a gimmick it almost never ends well. I may have to go and check it out to see if my hypothesis is correct. I’ll let you know if the 3D is better than a regular showing.

I saw the 3D version and it added a little depth (pun intended)  but not enough to forgo the normal theatrical release.

The other effects in the film were done with care and don’t scream out that a CGI effect has been done. Mark’s emaciated body toward the end of the film as well as the floating debris in space blends in so well that they all enhance the imagery without drawing attention to themselves.

Mark’s sense of humor helps him a lot in the weeks and months alone. He makes logs to keep a chronicle of his journey and Matt Damon embodies that character well. His touches of sarcasm and mental acuity are played well that gives Mark a charm that draws you into his plight and engages you in his survival. You want him to live because you fall in love with how down to Mars he is.

I have been ordered to read the book by a friend who says that the book as a lot of humor in it. As I understand it there are a number of cut scenes. There are a lot more of Matt Damon cracking wise in character for the camera. I can’t wait for the blue ray to come out so I can see them.

What blue ray release have you waited for in hopes of great extra features? 

Contagion

Contagion – 106min – PG13

If you are contemplating a germaphobic lifestyle, I would say you need to see this film. It is a recruitment film for the sterile agenda. It is all about the genesis of a disease and how it can wipe out millions of people because of the way we live and how we interact with one another. The movie is well done but an ensemble cast is sometimes hard to watch. I find myself interested in only some of the characters. This story places several characters as interpreters of the main star, the virus. As a concept this movie was great, it was executed well but overall for entertainment value this movie rates only a sickly yellow light.

The cast list is as long as my arm and most of them did really well. But the main star of this movie was MEV-1 virus. This story surrounds how it gets kicked off with one person and then spreads through the population. The evolution of this disease gets told through the eyes of the following characters: the Emhoff family Mitch (Matt Damon) and Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), their two kids Jory (Anna Jacoby-Heron) and Andrew (Joshua Seiden);Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) and Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) of the CDC, working towards a cure; Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) of the WHO who is searching for the origins of the virus; and conspiracy theorist blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) who sees himself as a messiah. With all of this talent is a shame that the movie was so focused on everyone it did not give us time to really connect with anyone. The main failing of this film is it’s a collection of short films all about the same topic but they don’t really hold together well in one story. Just when I was feeling something for one of the characters I was whisked off to another part of the world and I had to recalibrate and try to reconnect with those characters and their version of the problem.

The overall story suffers from its overzealous attempt to get a global view in such a short time. This story really could have been a miniseries and we could have spent more time getting to know the characters. The writer, Scott Z. Burns, needs to be commended on tackling this large project and making it into a story. It’s an interesting concept and it’s adequately done, but it does not have enough time to really drive a connection. Director Steven Soderbergh made a great film that is beautiful and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed the way it was filmed -- the long pauses on the items that passed the contagion and the surrounding problems once people stop doing things like collecting garbage. Putting the population tallies under the city names in scene changes was a truly great idea to put things in perspective. In the end I need to ask if this was the right vehicle for this story. I could see this being on HBO or on TNT as a miniseries but not an episodic show.

WARNING!! SPOILRS!! PLEASE USE HAZMAT SUITS BEOND THIS POINT

I got a very Hitchcockian feel from the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow was featured so prominently in the previews and the DIES within the first 10 min of the movie. Hitchcock did the same thing in Psycho with Janet Leigh.

This movie pulls no punches in its setting the bar in how fatal this virus is by also killing Beth’s son because she passed the virus off to him in a loving welcome home hug. OK, I am watching a movie where there are no boundaries on who is at risk, got it.

Jude Law is a marvelous performer I truly hated his character in this movie. He embodied all that is bad with humanity and I feel guilty for thinking this but if his followers were dumb enough to follow his advice I am kind of glad that they are not going to be in the gene pool. Humanity is better off. *Smug Mode Disengage.*

I thought the very ending should have been left off. We don’t get anything more from the story to learn that a bat was eating something over a pig pen and a pig ate its leftovers and we picked that up from a chef who did not wash his hands. Leaving it as an open topic of discussion would have been better, all I learned from this film’s ending is never shake hands with a cook. They are icky.

What other movies would have been better as a miniseries than a film. Tell me about it?