It’s time to save Matt Damon again.  First, Saving Private Ryan; then Interstellar.  Now he’s all alone on Mars in The Martian, with the entire world awaiting word on whether he will make it back home to Earth.

Ridley Scott’s film, based on the Andy Weir book, attempts to make science palatable to the masses.  For much of the story is pure science as survival, given that Damon has supplies for a couple of months but needs to stretch them into four years before a possible rescue.  Yet it is the science that is dramatically sticky.  I’m no scientist, but a few moments don’t feel right, and the idea that NASA wouldn’t even have considered swinging the ship currently returning to Earth back around toward Mars as a lifeboat is preposterous.  That’s the first thing NASA would check.

Despite this script issue Scott’s film is remarkable in its detail, showing how challenging and dangerous a trip to the Red Planet will eventually be.  At its heart the story is about ingenuity and the resilience of the human spirit, even when things look their worst.  It’s Apollo 13 all over again, only ninety-five million miles further away.  I still like Apollo 13 better; it’s more tightly focused, scientifically sharp and not so cutesy.

But The Martian is a heck of a movie, especially for people who think space travel is old hat.  Alien proved that Scott knows space is a dangerous place.  Gravity noted how tiny things going wrong can lead to cataclysm; The Martian shows that huge things going wrong can, sometimes, lead to epiphany.  ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2.  7 November 2015.