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Post #790224

Author
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda
Parent topic
just saw a pre-screening of "The Martian"
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/790224/action/topic#790224
Date created
23-Sep-2015, 3:36 AM

It was fun!   I managed to score a pile of pre-screening tickets for the computer club on campus.  We had about 30-40 students at the show.

The good:  I enjoyed the effects, Matt Damon was very good. 3D was well done and didn't seem gratuitous.  It really felt like I was on Mars.  Seemed like some decent science and reasonably believable.  Good story and good climax, fairly nail-biting.  Some truly beautiful panoramas - they managed to strike a nice balance between Mars being bleak, deadly, and unforgiving, but also spectacularly beautiful at the same time.  Best character - Benedict Wong is the lead rocket scientist; it's a bit part (and not even credited in IMDB!) but he steals every scene he's in.

The bad:  A bit formulaic/predictable.  A few really terrible casting decisions.  Every woman in the movie looked like a supermodel, whereas the men were more diverse/normal-looking.  Script was at times a bit juvenile - the humor was fine, it's just that overall language was more like high school, rather than NASA - more thought could have been put into crafting the dialogue.  I don't remember there being a memorable musical theme - most of the music was older pop hits.  Some missed opportunities for character development.  Rushed, didn't get the sense - at all - that several months had passed.

Overall, I enjoyed it and would happily see it again.