The Martian

For F*** Magazine

THE MARTIAN

Director : Ridley Scott
Cast : Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong
Genre : Sci-Fi/Adventure
Run Time : 142 mins
Opens : 1 October 2015
Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Disturbing Scenes)

Someone alert David Bowie – there is life on Mars after all. It comes in the form of astronaut Mark Watney (Damon), who is stranded on the planet after being presumed dead when a sandstorm strikes his crew. The rest of the Ares III astronauts, Lewis (Chastain), Martinez (Peña), Johanssen (Mara), Beck (Stan) and Vogel (Hennie) are bound for home, unaware that Watney is still alive. Watney is left to fend for himself, drawing on every ounce of resourcefulness as he makes the most out of extremely limited supplies, eking out an existence on Mars. Back on earth, NASA director Teddy Sanders (Daniels), Mars missions director Vincent Kapoor (Ejiofor), public relations manager Annie Montrose (Wiig), Jet Propulsion Lab director Bruce Ng (Wong) and others labour over devising a rescue plan once they discover Watney did not die as they had believed. In the face of sheer adversity, the “Martian” must survive and work towards finally coming home. 

The Martian is based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel of the same name, which was lauded for being thoroughly researched. There exists a scale, albeit a subjective one, of science fiction “hardness”, with something like Guardians of the Galaxy on the “soft” side and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the “hard” side. The Martian is a rare big-budget Hollywood hard sci-fi film and it emerges triumphant. Director Ridley Scott hasn’t had a spotless track record, coming off last year’s below-average Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings. His previous sci-fi film, 2012’s Prometheus, proved hugely divisive. With most of the key crew from Prometheus including director of photography Dariusz Wolski, editor Pietro Scalia, production designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates returning, Scott has managed to more than redeem himself. 

The Martian boasts a sweeping, epic majesty juxtaposed with the intimate tale of one man’s survival. Jordan’s Wadi Rum seems to have made a steady career doubling for the fourth planet from the sun in films like Mission to Mars, Red Planet, The Last Days on Mars and this one. While everything does look a little too slick and Hollywood-ised, there’s still a sense of authenticity, the harsh environs and the sheer remoteness of the Martian landscape driving home how slim Watney’s chances of making it out alive are. Real-life NASA staffers must be drooling at seeing manned Mars missions depicted so gloriously on the big screen, given how bureaucracy, a lack of funds and myriad other obstacles stand in the way of this actually being realized. The 3D effects are superb, most noticeably when we get to see astronauts floating through the long hallways of their spacecraft and in the exterior shots of the detailed and realistic Hermes ship drifting through space. 

Screenwriter Drew Goddard adapted Weir’s novel for the screen, and on paper, The Martian certainly sounds like it could be boring, with too many finicky technical details potentially holding the viewer at arm’s length. A good portion of the story unfolds in voice-overs that are packed with scientific exposition, but there is just as much showing as there is telling and the script is light enough on its feet, not getting weighed down by the “boring stuff”. This is a film that celebrates and champions science, all of its characters being the best and brightest. It’s also an extremely human survival story that almost defiantly refuses to spiral into mawkish sentimentality, while still hitting many emotional beats. Perhaps most surprisingly, The Martian is extremely funny. There are stakes and dire straits, but the tone is pleasantly upbeat and optimistic throughout. Sean Bean even gets to make a Lord of the Rings reference, sending many audience members in this reviewer’s screening howling with laughter. 

The Martian has been described as Apollo 13 meets Cast Away, and both films happen to star Tom Hanks. Here, Damon exudes an irresistible likeability that gives even Hanks a run for his money. Watney’s indomitable spirit and how he keeps his sense of humour intact throughout his ordeal keep us keen in seeing him alive. We cheer each instance in which his MacGyvering succeeds and wince whenever he’s hit by another setback. “Mars will come to fear my botany powers,” Watney jokingly proclaims as he sets about growing potatoes. Naturally, there are moments of introspection in which Watney considers the magnitude of his plight, and Damon is able to play those moments earnestly and compellingly. 

While the film is squarely Damon’s to carry, Scott has assembled a robust supporting cast to back him up. Cheesy as it sounds, there is something inspiring about seeing so many people put their heads together in working towards a common goal. Chastain proudly carries on the tradition of capable female characters in Ridley Scott movies, her Commander Melissa Lewis steely yet calm, a natural leader with an amusing penchant for 70s disco music. As NASA director Teddy Sanders, Daniels is the hard-nosed, pragmatic bureaucrat, but in his hands, the character does not become the stereotypical authority figure who’s standing in everyone’s way. Ejiofor does his share of hand-wringing, but it makes sense given the immense pressure on his character. Wiig is fine in a role that is not overtly comedic, though her presence at Mission Control might be distracting to those familiar with her prolific comedic exploits. 

There are places where the film falls back on formulaic genre trappings: the pilot Martinez tells engineer Johanssen to explain something “in English”; there are many scenes where characters take objects like pens and salt shakers and use them as stand-ins for spacecraft and planets in demonstrating manoeuvres and Donald Glover shows up as a hyperactive genius prone to Eureka moments. That said, it is remarkable just how refreshing The Martian is. In this day and age, it seems everything has been done before, especially in big sci-fi blockbusters. That The Martian manages to be so unique and engaging is certainly commendable. In telling the story of the efforts to bring Mark Watney home, Scott has hit a home run. 

Summary: A thrilling, surprisingly funny survival film with a grounding in actual science, The Martian features one of Matt Damon’s most charming performances to date and is a joyous ode to the merits of ingenuity and perseverance. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Adjustment Bureau

As published in F*** Magazine, Issue 14 (March 2011)

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU

2011 release

Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie

Directed by: George Nolfi

Media Rights Capital/dist. Universal Pictures.

            A topic of discussion that often pops up when philosophy is the subject is that of fate – do we believe that we are solely in control of our lives, or that every move we make has been planned, pre-destined by some sort of higher power or sinister underlying force? A lot of this does sound like pretentious dribble, and films that try to address it often end up as the same – but this one, this one is a wee bit different.

            The film is loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story The Adjustment Team. Dick numbers amount the authors who have had the most number of films based on their books and stories. Alas, the man passed away just several months shy of the release of the first one, the seminal classic Blade Runner. Unfortunately, the qualities of these adaptations vary vastly (who can forgive Paycheck, Next or Impostor?), and Blade Runner is often regarded as the best, with Spielberg’s Minority Report a close runner-up.

            Matt Damon plays David Norris, a young, up-and-coming New York politician running for Senate. He is loved by all, until an embarrassing photograph comes to light, published in the New York Post. His numbers fall and he is crushed. Before making his “defeat speech” to concede to the other candidate, he bumps into Elise (Blunt), a slightly kooky but friendly and beautiful dancer. The next day, by sheer coincidence, he meets her again on the bus.

            He is immediately enamoured with the girl, but his life is suddenly turned upside-down by the eponymous Bureau: strange, mysterious men, unclassifiable but for the sake of explanation something like half-angels, half-CIA covert-ops spooks. They seem omniscient but blend into the background, and are all identically dressed in grey suits and a bowler hat. They tell Norris that he was never meant to meet her a second time, and to never meet her again, or the “plan” will fall apart. But Norris is smitten, and proves he will defy anything or anyone to be reunited with Elise – even an all-powerful secret organization.

            At first sight, The Adjustment Bureau seems like it might be an interesting watch, but borrows too many elements from its predecessors, such as the television series Fringe with its bowler hat-wearing “Observers” or Danny Boyle’s A Life Less Ordinary, which depicted heavenly angels as policemen. However, The Adjustment Bureau is a beast all its own – a mostly enjoyable, clever and very entertaining beast.

            The main thing that separates The Adjustment Bureau from most films based on P-K-D source material is that this takes place in the present, in a world that is immediately established as real and normal – accomplished effectively by having media figures such as Jon Stewart and Wolf Blitzer appear as themselves, and by putting Norris’ face in publications such as GQ and the New York Post. In a way, this is much like the montage in Iron Man, which showed publications that had featured Tony Stark in the past, including Wired, Esquire and Time. Mainly because of this, The Adjustment Bureau shares a very similar tone to that of Iron Man – it takes place in a world almost exactly like ours, only with a large helping of fantastical, super-high-tech or maybe even supernatural gravy.

            The Adjustment Bureau’s Achilles heel is really its look. There are several cool and iconic images, and the “planner diaries” that the Adjusters use are literal E-books, normal bound paper notebooks except displaying complex computerized “decision trees”, tracking the effect of every move the subject makes. However, many may form expectations of the film based on the image of the mysterious men in suits and hats, just as I did.

            I was quite wrong – a huge part of the movie’s success is the way it handles the characters of the Adjustment Bureau agents. We are used to seeing cold, emotionless and robotic Men-In-Black types, who are everywhere; who can and will do anything. The Bureau agents here however are depicted as mostly regular company men – regular salary guys who have to deal with office politicking and back-biting, meeting deadlines and fulfilling responsibilities, and who need to take holidays too.

            The performances are very solid across the board. Matt Damon is an excellent actor whose specialty is playing the normal, everyday guy with a special talent, gift or skill. Therefore, he is the right choice to play an idealised, almost-perfect Congressman whom everyone immediately loves, and who is genuinely a good man through and through. Emily Blunt is, like Damon, also considered one of the best talents in the industry at the moment. She plays a ballerina, but unlike in Black Swan, she’s mostly a dream girl – quick-witted, intelligent, a tiny bit on the eccentric side and dedicated to her craft.

            There are very few successful films with no real, solid villain – Forrest Gump is the example that quickly comes to mind. The Adjustment Bureau agents seem sinister, but as we get to know them better we learn they’re just doing their jobs. However, along comes senior agent Thompson (Terence Stamp doing what he does best), cold, dangerously effective and amoral. Anthony Mackie, again a rising star with a solid pedigree (best known as Sgt. Sanborn in The Hurt Locker and as the late rap superstar Tupac Shakur in Notorious) puts in marvellous work as Harry; a supporting character who first clues us in to the fact that the Bureau’s agents have the capacity to be scrupulous and some may even have grown a conscience.

            The movie’s main problem is the opposite of that that has plagued a good number of recent blockbusters – it boasts a strong story, very competent writing and intriguing characters, but lacks in the style department. This is a pity as writer/director George Nolfi, co-screenwriter on The Bourne Ultimatum (also a Damon-starring film) and first-time director, has a nose for a good story. The film’s story departs a fair bit from the source material, but so did all the other P-K-D story-based movies – except here, like in Minority Report, it is a wise change of context that makes it a good watch.

            The biggest credit that Nolfi, the filmmakers and the cast deserve is that they took a fantastical, genre-bending paranoid conspiracy thriller and made it extremely relatable to audiences. The dialogue between Elise and David is natural, witty and most of it sounds a lot like how real couples would speak – it was as if Nolfi wrote David’s lines, and his wife/girlfriend wrote Elise’s. Nolfi, armed with a Ph.D in political science, also demonstrates his remarkable aptitude for writing a politician character and arming him with rhetoric-filled speeches and an adoring public.

            Ultimately, it’s a crying shame that The Adjustment Bureau can and will come off to many as run-of-the-mill, boring and forgettable, if mildly interesting. This is a movie that boasts formidable acting talent and a masterful adaptation of a classic short story written by a literary legend – and in the end, it feels like it doesn’t work mainly because the mysterious agents look exactly the same as every one of that kind before. This is actually a good film, and my main advice is to adjust your expectations and enjoy the ride.

RATING: 3.5/5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Hereafter

HEREAFTER

2010

Starring: Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

            Next to “what is the meaning of life”, the most-asked philosophical/existential question is probably “what happens after life?” This is an idea that has been explored on screen and has been a fixation of mass media for the longest time. After geriatric astronauts, boxers, chasing people off his lawn with a shotgun, and a certain South-African rugby team, director Clint Eastwood turns his attention to this very question.

            The film features three simultaneous subplots. We have reluctant former professional psychic George Lonegan (Damon), French author-journalist Marie Lelay (de France) and twin British boys Marcus (Frankie McLaren) and Jason (George McLaren). They each have struggles that stem from an experience of the afterlife in one form or another.

            George is content working a blue-collar job as a forklift driver, as he attempts to shake off the emotional torment of conducting psychic readings and helping clients talk to their deceased love ones, even as his brother Billy (Jay Mohr) insists that George should continue to make money using his “gift”.

            While on assignment in Thailand, Marie is caught in the middle of a violent tsunami, and is briefly on the receiving end of a near-death experience. Back in Paris, she has trouble at work as a television interview program host, and decides to investigate the phenomenon of near-death experiences, writing a book about it.

            Marcus and Jason stick by their alcoholic, heroin-addicted mother Jackie (Lyndsey Marshal) – the slightly older Jason chatty, cheerful and always looking out for Marcus. Suddenly, Marcus is forced to deal with a tragic and startling loss, separated from her mother as she is sent for rehabilitation, and this time without Jason to count on as big brother.

            For a film focusing on the spirit realm, Hereafter is decidedly down to earth, and it works. The characters are all regular people and are immediately relatable. A big problem with a lot of supernatural dramas is that they often provide little elements from real life for their audience to cling to. That is not in short supply here – the factory worker, schoolboy and journalist very real and very vulnerable.

            Clint Eastwood is recognised as a smart director, and that is on show here. He walks right up to a cliché, and then carefully takes two steps back. Many elements and character traits are comfortably familiar but never feel contrived or forced. This is also to writer Peter Morgan’s credit, balancing all the right ingredients.

However, the main issue with the film is its fragmented nature. Eastwood tries almost too hard to give each of the three subplots equal screen time, and as the movie hits the halfway mark and is neck-deep in the story, it is easy to lose track of the plot and perhaps even lose touch with the individual characters.

            It is a good thing then that the actors do a mighty fine job holding it all together. Matt Damon is brilliant as the anchor character of the film. His George is unflinchingly real and workman-like, first subtly likeable as an everyman protagonist and second, convincing as a man who really can talk to the dead. We get to see just how much his past as a professional psychic interferes in his everyday life, right down to a potential relationship with the nice fellow student at a cooking class and the new girl in town, Melanie (Bryce Dallas-Howard) – and also glimpse his love for Charles Dickens audio books.

            Cecile de France is also very good – for Western audiences most familiar with her role in Around the World in Eighty Days, seeing de France at her dramatic best is a welcome treat. A good part of her scenes are in French, effectively removing any problems she may have language-wise. Her character behaves just as a real woman might after a traumatic incident, and that instinctive spark of a journalist and writer makes the character fresh and quite interesting. As Marie learns more of the little-known realities of near-death experiences, we learn more about her.

            Oftentimes, kid actors can make or break a film regardless of their heavyweight, grown-up co-stars. Eastwood cast the real-life twins and first-time actors because he “didn’t want child actors who’d been over-instructed in child acting 101”. George is a better actor than Frankie, but Frankie’s character Marcus is the one who gets more screen time. Frankie seems stiff at times, but it does fit the personality of the shy and introspective Marcus quite well.

            Tonally, the film is sure-footed and consistent. The mise en scene is unflinchingly realistic and bleak; no effort is made to glamourise any of the locales (even including London and Paris), and it works. Eastwood delivers some gorgeous and cleverly-framed shots, but he is far from a flashy director, and is wisely hesitant to put a “stamp” all over the film. 

The flashy special effects are mainly reserved for the frightening and intense tsunami scene that opens the film – it’s not as photo-realistic as audiences have come to expect, but it does the job and sets the movie up well. The film is leavened with a tiny sprinkling of humour – the sequence in which Marcus visits several amusingly incompetent “psychics” is sad but also darkly funny.

           

            It feels very good to step into the theatre, sit down and watch an actual film. Not some crazy over-budgeted 3D extravaganza, nor a tiny pretentious arthouse flick – a good old-fashioned movie. Those have their place, but the place for films like Hereafter seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and that’s why it’s nice to see movies like that getting made. It’s thoughtful, meditative, meandering tone may not sit well with restless moviegoers, but where it matters – on an emotional level – Hereafter certainly resonates.

4/5 STARS

Jedd Jong