The Martian (2015)

I put off seeing the film version of The Martian until after I had finished Andy Weir's novel, which is the story of a marooned astronaut and the efforts to save him. The book is kind of amazing, a combination of wry humor, scientific literacy and mood that is really engaging. I listened to a good portion of the audio book while on a recent trip, usually I alternate between music and a book, but Weir's story was so good that it was all I listened to for the last four or so hours of the drive. While the film version isn't as good as the source material, its still pretty darn good. I was concerned they wouldn't be able to fit everything into the movie, there is so much martial, but there was really only one major plot point they largely skipped over, namely difficulties with the solar cells on the final rover trip. While the movie can not convey the full sense of both monotony and peril that you get in the novel, it does a reasonably good job. Matt Damon is good in the lead, and the supporting cast crams a lot of recognizable actors into the proceedings, especially for a story that doesn't have all the many developed characters in it. The coda at the end which resolves various character arcs isn't in the novel, but I think the movie needed it. This is a story of human ingenuity, and of the human capacity for good, and its smartly written, there are simply not enough movies like this, it is appreciated. ***1/2