Reviews for The Martian are out of this world.
The science fiction film is based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel of the same name, which was adapted into a screenplay by Drew Goddard. Matt Damon is in the lead as astronaut Mark Watney, who, after a terrible storm, is presumed dead and left behind on the planet Mars. With meager resources, he must find a way to survive on the hostile planet. Meanwhile, back on Earth, members of NASA and a team of international scientists work round the clock to bring him home as Mark's crew members hatch their own plan for a daring rescue mission.
Directed by the award-winning Ridley Scott, The Martian also features Sean Bean, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Sebastian Stan and Kristen Wiig in supporting roles.
The 20th Century Fox film is rated PG-13 and will be released Friday in 2D and 3D.
Here's what critics think of The Martian:
• The Wrap's Alonso Duralde calls it "one of the most exciting film-going experiences" of the year. "It's a movie that believes in humanity's capacity to travel the universe, but it also cheerleads for the scientific know-how required to build a rocket or to calculate a trajectory or even to grow crops using astronaut poop. It's a film that believes in people's better instincts and the potential for our ability to create an exceptional future...Perhaps most importantly, not only does the film stress the importance of using math and physics and botany and chemistry to solve problems, but it also makes a plot based on scientific inquiry and audacity just as exciting and even more unpredictable as the movies' usual brand of problem solving, the kind that involves punching everyone and then blowing everything up."
• Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty's says this "is the kind of film you leave the theater itching to tell your friends to see. Like Apollo 13 and Gravity, it turns science and problem solving into an edge-of-your-seat experience." He notes that there have been "a lot of movies about Mars," "a lot of movies about lone castaways" and "even one that combined the two, 1964's Robinson Crusoe on Mars." The Martian "is the first to make you feel what it's like to be stranded there, thanks to both Scott's 3-D visual grandeur (this is, after all, the man behind Alien and Blade Runner) and his charismatic Crusoe, Damon."
• The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy calls The Martian "constantly absorbing rather than outright exciting." Scott manages to "generate a degree of suspense in this climactic stretch...but the film's overall tone is dominated by the characters' collegial humor, mutual respect among professionals and smart people being tested by an unprecedented challenge. The director and screenwriter downplay the conventional melodrama inherent in the situation in favor of emphasizing how practical problems should be addressed with rational responses rather than hysteria, knee-jerk patriotism or selfish expedience. The result is an uncustomarily cheery and upbeat film from Scott...There is also a insinuation that the meticulous sense of resourcefulness, the upbeat get-the-job-done attitude exemplified by Mark is very much akin to the director's own, to the point that the optimistic lining common to both the novel and the film seems at one with the story itself and not an artificial, Hollywood-induced spin."
• "Damon, in true movie star mode, brings a self-assured confidence to the role," Us Weekly's Mara Reinstein writes. Mark "may be smarter than all of us," but "there's something about Damon's performance that makes him an empathetic everyman." Scott, meanwhile, effortlessly balances the action between Mark on Mars, the crew in orbit and the team in Texas "without ever losing the film's exhilarating pulse...This is his best work in eons; same for his unfettered leading man."
• Variety's Peter Debruge calls The Martian an "enthralling and rigorously realistic outer space survival story" that "could conceivably rekindle interest in the space program and inspire a new generation of future astronauts." He adds that at its most basic, "The Martian serves as an epic homage to the nerd—a deferential widescreen celebration of human intelligence in a genre that so often hinges on speed, brawn or sheer midi-chlorian levels (thanks for nothing, George Lucas). And while Watney may be stranded by himself on Mars, he's anything but alone, with the best minds on Earth working overtime to bring him home—if only he can figure out how to communicate with the good folks at Houston's Johnson Space Center. Nothing brings the people of this planet together quite like space travel, and Scott manages to alternate between the immediate Reader's Digest appeal of Watney's sol-to-sol survival on Mars with the unifying impact his potential rescue has back on Earth, where TV viewers follow every development and the Chinese even declassify a secret space program in order to help."
• "If you are worried about heading to space again with Ridley Scott after the grim, muddled Prometheus, fear not," Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson writes. "His new space yarn, The Martian...is a pure delight, a tense survival tale leavened by an abundance of geeky wit and an array of fine actors at their snappy best. It's the first Ridley Scott picture in a long time that feels energized by its scope and ambition rather than buried under it." He adds that "there is never a slow moment" in the 141-minute film. "When the movie gets serious, and scary, Scott employs a bracing mix of intimacy and zoomed-out scale to illustrate Watney's unenviable plight. While Watney's problems are up-close and immediate, the film never lets us forget the vastness surrounding him. When Watney's crew gets involved in the rescue effort, the film expands to depict not just the harsh, eerie majesty of Mars, but the mind-boggling physics of space travel." According to Lawson, The Martian "could easily have been a misfire: dull, schematic, too implausible. But with every carefully constructed detail, flourish, and nuance, Scott's picture clicks and grooves like a beautiful machine. A beguiling mix of suspenseful, goofy, and rousing, The Martian is sublime, sophisticated entertainment. I left feeling weightless."
• "The Martian is less a coup de cinema than Gravity, which jettisons through open space with swooping 720-degree camera moves," GQ's Scott Tobias writes, "but it's a triumph of another kind, an ode to problem-solving and sticktuitiveness...What separates The Martian from Gravity is that it's not all visceral rush: Mark thinks through his situation methodically, and once NASA's finest become aware of his situation, they start coming up with solutions on their end, too. It's not enough that Mark has the will to survive, which is something that all action heroes in Hollywood share; this is a movie that values expertise and creative thinking without losing any thrills in the process." The film is "a reminder of innovations and advances possible when smart people have to work together to find solutions to complex problems."