Help is only a planet away, in Ridley Scott’s newest sci fi feature starring Matt Damon and a who’s who of A-listers. “The Martian” takes place During a manned mission to Mars with Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return. What really works about this film is the smart nature in which it’s presented, as well as an unusual facelift artistically for Director Ridley Scott, adding a nice blend of Science Fiction suspence with tone setting comedy to run smoothly for nearly two and a half hours. Matt Damon gives a nominee for the best performance of his career. For a lot of this film, it is a one man show while Watney is trapped without an inkling of hope, but Damon keeps the dry scenes going with a lot of observational humor that is easy to grasp for any audience member who can’t quite pick up on all of the physics talk. One of the biggest problems i had with last year’s “Interstellar” is that the film was almost too difficult to grasp in some of it’s concepts. What “The Martian” does, expands it a whole lot further. No detail is ever left to be skipped over, and no time frame is ever sped up. The latter played perhaps my favorite detail in this film, as we finally get a space movie where we get a good indication on just how long and lonely the journey from planet to planet is. Many other Mars films in years past have more of a goal to speed the movie up to the big reveals. “The Martian” goes against this formula and for the most part, it succeeds. There were a couple of scenes that felt rehashed with the comedic schtick of Damon, if only because it gets re-used and recycled the longer the movie goes on. I also wish Damon could’ve played off the dread and defeat in his sitation a little more. We know Watney is stranded, but we never feel like he is in any real danger because he is a Botonist who has a solution to everything. We are invested in his character, but we just don’t feel pity for him. Other actors deserving of credit goes to Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, and Chiwetel Ejifor. Chastain is the leader of the ship that desserts Watney, and we get a great human performance to her character. So much of what she does is about the best in all of her team, and the movie goes a long way because of her heart and determination. Daniels serves as kind of an antagonist of sorts, as the man behind the suit who does everything by the book. Daniels is one of Hollywood’s wide range talents, and this film was proof that he is not limited to just slapstick comedy. The real prize in the bunch however, goes to Ejifor. Once again, this entrancing actor who stole the show in “12 Years a Slave”  and “Z For Zachariah”, nearly steals this film from under Damon’s clutches. He serves as our narrator for the events going on back at home, and the movie rises to the grandest of occasions when the communication barriers are broken down between he and Watney. Add to all of this a disco soundtrack that will have your toes tapping to the first truly fun film of the fall, and you have a can’t miss experience for space enthusiasts of all kinds. “The Martian” has great range emotionally, and it uses it for a journey millions of miles long with a film that is every bit as smart as it is faithful to it’s source material.

8/10