No.172 : The Martian (2015)

The Martian at the IMDb

As my regular reader will attest we’re not fans of the tent pole film here at the Definitive Article Movie Blog. We avoid the obvious and search out the niche films that you’ve never hear of, or have no interest in ever seeking out. We don’t deal in absolutes however, so I thought we’d have a look at ‘The Martian’ which has become my favourite Definite Article film.

Quiet at the back! We’ve never covered ‘The Shining’ or ‘The Warriors’ and on a Google search on the highest profile IMDb film that we’ve reviewed, the result the passable but hardly stellar ‘The Impossible’; so why ‘The Martian’? Well, it’s just so damn good and immersive. I must have watched it about four times and every time I’ve been suckered in early on, on E4+1 or similar and stayed for the duration. It’s like ‘Clear and Present Danger’ in that its structure demands you watch for just another five minutes, and another and another and before you know it, two hours have passed, and your pizza has dried up.

The film is based on Andy Weir’s book which I read and enjoyed having watched the film. The book is superior in that it delves deeper into the science and avoids the large gaps that the film inevitably has to, to ensure a two hour run time. The film is however a triumph in translating the book and in making the science accessible. I just hope that one day they release a ten hour version of the film so that all the tiny details can be explored.

Anyway, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a botanist astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars after he’s thought dead when a storm causes his crew to evacuate in a hurry. He survives though after his blood and an aerial spike block the hole that stabbed him through his health monitor and caused his crew to think him dead. His quandary is that he has no way to contact NASA and it will be four years before a rescue mission can be sent, and he only has food for one. His resolution is to science the shit out of things and he proceeds to do so in a variety of plausible if slightly fortunate ventures, that include salvaging the ancient Pathfinder equipment that is luckily close by.

That’s not to say its an easy ride, as the harvesting of a crop of potatoes takes the best part of an hour with every success well earned and enjoyed by the audience. Meanwhile back on earth a cavalcade of celebrities, including Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig, try to came up with a way to bring our man home against a soundtrack of disco favourites.

Towards the end the progress is on fast forward somewhat with Watney’s 3600 mile journey to the new launch site and his trip back to earth covered with indecent haste. I imagine the editor must have had a nightmare though, as the early work in setting the challenges had to be offset with the eventual payoffs.

I liked the NASA stuff with the internal politics and budget concerns as much a threat as Martian storms and potato blight. Some bits were a bit on the nose with Donald Glover’s explaining a slingshot to NASA bigwigs seeming somewhat unlikely - I’ve heard of them and I’ve only seen Star Trek. Director Ridley Scott was obviously aware of the need to keep his audience informed and for that reason I can accept the conceit.

I always enjoy the crew of the Hermes scenes the most with the camaraderie and the unquestioning sacrifice for a lost colleague the kind of stuff that always gives me the gulps. Who knows in the real world if they would risk the lives of many and spend the billions of dollars to give one man another what? 50 odd years at most? I’m glad they did in the film - the scenes of the crew being reunited and the world gasping as one were excellent, and as big a ‘oh yeah’ as when Rocky Balboa chopped the big Russian down.

Well done ‘The Martian’ your definitive crown is well earned.

THE Tag Line : A Mars for 581 days will help you work,rest and make a good film  -  90%

No.18 : The Informant! (2009)

The Informant! at the IMDb

You can almost see the scene; the marketing team for this movie have a hard job. It involves complex ideas of bribery and corruption and has no sex scenes or car chases - how can we convince the audience that this is in fact a jaunty comedy worth their seven quid? Yes, I’ve got it - stick an exclamation point on the end of the title, that’ll do it. We can also make the graphics a bit wacky and have a seemingly inappropriate kooky soundtrack - that’ll show them.

I actually quite enjoyed this film, but to call it a comedy would be stretching things and the whole films hangs on a single premise - Matt Damon lies a lot. Damon plays Mark Whitacre a bio-chemist at a chemical plant who has found himself in a corporate role. He develops products from corn and finds himself in a hard spot when a new strain of a chemical fails. He tells his boss that there is sabotage in place and he’s received a demand for $10 million for the name of the mole and the formula to save the new chemical.

Things go smoothly at first when the guy off ‘Quantum Leap’ is assigned to be his FBI handler in their investigation of the extortion attempt. Mark thinks that he’s being set up as the fall guy as he regularly calls Japan, the source of the ransom demands. He decides to become an informant against the company and spills the beans on all their schemes involving global price fixing.

For a while Mark is the hero and gets evidence of secret meetings and deals. Things start to go awry however when his stories start to get a bit far fetched and his own dealings come under scrutiny. Before long egg is on all the faces as Mark is exposed as an inveterate liar and the biggest crook at the table.

With the company and the FBI both looking a bit silly can Mark stay out of jail and keep his ill gotten gains which keep escalating in value as the film progresses?

That quality overview of the film may make it look a bit dry and to be honest it is. The set up is OK and I enjoyed the various companies and agencies all being as incompetent as each other. Matt Damon does a good job with the lying and we genuinely believe his character is a corporate crusader at first before his world of lies gradually unravels about him.

It’s probably all the ‘Bourne’ films on his resume but I wasn’t convinced that the 40 year old Damon was this flabby, balding lair with a bio-chemistry degree and nice taste in ties. He gives good value in the more ridiculous scenes but less so in the ones where he was being earnest and forthright. His get out clause is of course that his character is a liar so any unbelievable stuff was just that character trait bleeding out.

The film does well to maintain your interest through a lot of scenes that are just middle aged men talking around various tables. The running gag that the money embezzled went up every time it was mentioned was quite funny but apart from that there weren’t too many laughs. I did like Mark’s internal monologue which often had no bearing on the matter at hand but came into sharper focus as the lies tumbled down.

Further down the cast list it was nice to see Kurgan off ‘Highlander’ in a tie and Scott Bakula did OK as the hapless FBI agent. Damon’s wife was a bit thinly drawn and we never really got to the heart of her motivations - I guess it was keeping the nice house and that’s it.

The film opens with a caption saying they’ve changed stuff and ends with some others that explain what happened next. Seeing as you don’t know what’s was true and what wasn’t this was pretty pointless but overall I quite enjoyed this tale of lies, greed and more lies.


THE Tag Line : Believe Me It’s Not Bad 66%