Garrett Griffin

U.S. Astronaut Mark Wartney (played by Matt Damon) stares at the vast openness of the Martian planet while working on a plan for survival and eventual rescue.
Image Courtesy of Screenrant.com.

You can travel to Mars for the price of a single movie ticket and see an action movie on the side. It seems like someone would realize that maybe Matt Damon is not the best person to send on an important mission since he always needs to be rescued. This week, though, you can go and see the United States spend millions of dollars saving an American hero: astronaut Mark Watney. Not to diminish the film, the movie The Martian is a great action movie with some of the best, if not the very best, computer-generated-graphics currently available. It has been well received by many critics.

I attended the first 3D viewing of the film on October 10th at Texarkana Cinemark Theater. I don’t know that the 3-D adds too much to the film, so if you are used to seeing the standard 2D presentation of the film, you will still have a great time. I will first say there are a few curse-words both uttered, as silent-lip-readings, and as abbreviated visuals. Because of this the movie was assigned the rating of PG-13.

The biggest thing that struck me was the realistic representation of Mars’ surface. Even without IMAX the film envelopes and places you on the planet. The time period during which this is supposed to occur is not stated but it appears to be the present. This makes the film much more relatable to the point where you would think you could turn on the television or computer and see the status of the rescue mission.

The movie does tend to use more scientific dialogue, which is understandable for a team of NASA astronauts. For the science-minded person this film will be well-received and thoroughly enjoyed. For those who are not, the film has enough action and a nominal amount of emotion to keep the viewer entertained.

The current ratings and reviews of the top three movie critiquing organizations have been rather positive. The movie currently has a score of 8.4 from the IMDB (Internet Movie Database). Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 93% and lastly, Metacritic gives it a score of 81%.

If you are looking for something to do, I would definitely suggest seeing this movie. It is nothing short of a great science-action film. See it before its gone.