You can't really call this a sci-fi movie, since these events in it could actually happen, and may happen before the end of our lifetime. But the truth is The Martian isn't based on any true story yet--although I kept having to remind myself of that. Of course it would all be more impressive and meaningful if it were--like Apollo 13 for instance. It's this odd "not quite sci-fi" aspect that makes Ridley Scott's newest project a little different. It's easy to accept the different script beats when we're watching a film where we're encapsulated so much by the unique concept and universe, but when viewing something that COULD be real yet isn't, we may be likely to say to ourselves, "Hmm, I wonder why the filmmakers chose to do that." Not to say that The Martian is predictable, but it does lack a certain "so crazy that it has to be true" element--because it's not true, and it's really not crazy if you think about what we could accomplish in the next 50 years or less.
The Martian is a film about a manned Mars mission where a series of events lead 5 crew members to believe that their sixth member (Matt Damon) is indeed dead. They leave him behind and head home. Meanwhile, NASA discovers that Damon's character, Mark Whatney, is actually alive, but they can't afford for his crew to turn around and get him because they wouldn't have enough resources to elongate the trip.
It's a star-studded cast featuring, alongside Damon, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, et al. The acting is terrific, and on a technical level this film is nearly perfect.
It may not take enough risks for some of the more macabre members of the audience, but it never bothers me as it's refreshing to get some representation of yesteryear in film. It's pretty Spielberg-esque in the sense that it's not very dark and nothing truly unpredictable happens--since, really, we haven't enough knowledge in order to predict what would happen. It's a subject that not many laypersons know about. But (spoiler alert) there aren't any surprise alien encounters or anything like that. Given the limited information we have, we can foresee certain possibilities ahead of time. But The Martian is such a unique film that we love every minute of it. We live so vicariously through Damon's character that it makes the journey feel so much more real.
Some of the banter between scientists becomes pretty heavy, but I applaud it for making the situations understandable without dumbing it down.
It's just a pleasing film to watch and has a classic cinema quality to it. It's a little long at nearly 2 and a half hours, but it never seems to drag, and the length serves to emphasize the perenniality of Whatney's marooning.
It's one of the best films of the year, and one of the most well done movies you'll see in recent years. It will be hard to find someone who doesn't recommend this one.
Twizard Rating: 100
Much of the surprising depth that graced 1994's Dumb and Dumber is missing here. Of course we didn't have that naive '90s charm, but the humor seems randomly scattered rather than strategically placed. Although the original may have just been a vessel for giving us a ton of humorous situations, it never felt like a sketch comedy show or a rapid fire of gags.
The chemistry between the two leads is still there, but the identity of the writers doesn't seem to be. They play more to the concepts, rather than the characters on the screen. Many of the jokes aren't a reflection of the characters' dumbness, just humorous concepts. To me, the film is funny as a stand-alone comedy, but as a sequel to one of my favorite comedies, it doesn't exactly do the trick. The style and tone differ greatly from the first installment. It's just not quite as smart. The lines aren't as quotable and the gags rely too much on gross-out laughs. It feels more like a project to make the writers laugh at their own jokes.
In the original film, the entire foundation of the movie is based on stupidity--the fact that the Harry and Lloyd don't know how the world works. Here the situations aren't naive-stupid, just adolescent-stupid.
Although, we have to realize that as beloved as the original movie is, it's not without imperfections. But the jokes don't make the story seem obsolete like this one does.
The bits don't fall flat every time, but they feel a little more Seth MacFarlane-esque than desired. But it also has to do with the fact that we simply are no longer a society that welcomes slap-stick comedy with open arms--let alone 110 minutes of it.
I'm not one of the many people who hated the Dumb and Dumber prequel, and I think that I may have liked it a little more than this one simply because it attempted, although not perfectly succeeding, to mimic to style of the first film.
Humor has transformed a lot over the years. Not just humor, but what we expect from humor. It's more improv-based now, and honestly Dumb and Dumber was ahead of its time in that sense. But instead of relying on the natural talents of their two leads, the writers decided to contrive every idea on the screen to the point where you feel like the actors don't just get to do their thing.
In aiming to be more adult than the original, ironically the humor ends up being more juvenile. Dumb and Dumber paved the way for many films after it, but we have to realize that movies such as American Pie and Superbad have come out since then, and their influence may have guided the hands of these writers in exchange.
It's missing a little bit of the charm from the 1994 classic, and for fans of the original you may be disappointed, but I would recommend you watch this movie out of loyalty to the first. It's not THAT bad.
Twizard Rating: 68
It's really hard to be objective about movie that I grew up watching and loving. But while Dumb and Dumber may have its faults, it's really a great movie and speaks a lot about where we were humor-wise in 1994. Jim Carrey was just starting to blow up and buddy films were at the forefront of the comedy world.
The charm of Dumb and Dumber is purely organic and comprises of a perfect sum of its parts. I was watching the "uncut" version of this film once and have to admit that I didn't like any of the added/extended scenes. It leads me to realize that this is one of those movies that you can't add to or take away from. If you touch it at all, it deteriorates its quality.
Although I can watch this movie as is, I can admit that it has its slow parts. The end of the 2nd act it can get sluggish, and the plot finally catches up with itself in the 3rd act as it ties everything together. The runtime can be slimmed down a bit, while the plot stretches quite thin in order to make room for more jokes.
But the charisma of this movie doesn't necessarily come from the script. It comes from Carrey and Daniels themselves. Their respective individuality--yet similarity--strikes a chord with fans of this film.
Having watched this movie dozens of times I can say that it may not be perfect, but I can't imagine it any other way--nor would I want to.
Twizard Rating: 89
