Martian

The one and only cinema in Dillon was showing Martian today, so we went along to see it. For Dillon, I was pleasantly surprised that their cinema was up to scratch even if it was too old fashioned to use tickets. The theatre was a respectable size and the audio and screen quality were good too.

The film itself was brilliant. It was rather long – 2 and a half hours but the entire time I was engrossed, sitting at the edge of my seat. I cried, laughed and covered my eyes at parts. The film is about a crew that go on a Mars mission. An unforseen storm means one member of the team gets left on Mars alone. He it a botanist (we do some botany work with the forest service – big up to botanists). This meant he had the knowledge to be able to grow potatoes on Mars (apparently potatoes were actually grown on set for this). Nasa had to make lots of decisions back on Earth in order to save him and not put the rest of the crew in jeopardy. The film is full of tense moments where it could have gone either way.

While Martian touched on lots of technical space procedures it was easy to follow. There were lots of funny moments which had the entire audience giggling. Other scenes were heart warming. While one scene at the beginning rather squeamish – I found it really hard to watch.

The special effects were phenomenal, the film was made so well. It used a combination of CGI and filming from different locations (Jordan) to depict Mars. The space station back in earth was filmed in Budapest. In total it took 70 days to film.

I thought the actors did a great job too. Matt Damon conveyed the stranded botanist very well. He had the audience gripped. While Jessica Chastine was perfect for the mission leader. She was a strong character who made impossible decisions.

I definitely recommend watching Martian, it was a great film.