Review: 'The Martian,' Matt Damon lost in space

'In space, no one can hear you scream" went the tagline for Ridley Scott's triumphantly creepy 1979 monster movie, Alien.

In the British director's latest venture beyond Earth's orbit, The Martian, no one can hear Mark Watney (Matt Damon) scream, either. Or crack jokes, or take inventory, or talk to a computer, considering his chances for survival.

Watney, a botanist, was abandoned on the Red Planet when his NASA crewmates beat a hasty retreat in the mighty whorl of a storm. He had gotten separated in the minutes before the emergency launch, and when he was hit by debris and his suit stopped emitting signals, he was presumed dead.

Wrong.

But it will take months for the resourceful scientist to figure out a way to let Mission Control know that he's alive and ticking, and it will take years - years - for Houston to ready a mission to get up there and bring him home. Even if Watney rations out the packs of food in the kitchen of the "Hab" - the prefab habitat he and his Ares III buddies had shared - he's unlikely to live long enough to meet his rescuers.

What's a poor deserted astronaut to do?

Adapted from Andy Weir's 2011 novel of the same name - a self-published success story if ever there was one - The Martian is never less than engaging, and often much more than that. For at least half the film, it is Damon alone, rooting through his departed colleagues' personal effects, trekking across the otherworldly sands, recording his thoughts for posterity, and then, in a display of Eagle Scout ingenuity, harvesting crops - potatoes - in a place where nothing grows.

"Mars will come to fear my botany powers," Watney says in what we come to learn is his characteristic mode - deadpan, defiant. Damon is terrific here, balancing wiseguy levity with a sturdy resolve and glimmers of doubt and dread. There are moments when he realizes he could die - but he shakes them off, soldiers on.

Using Drew Goddard's text-faithful screenplay, an unwavering affirmation of science and scientific know-how, Scott and his team (cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, pointing the way) create an utterly credible near-future scenario. By the time the movie returns to Earth, to catch up with NASA and its politics-and-PR sensitive director (Jeff Daniels), its administrators, engineers, and flight controllers (Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mackenzie Davis) and their counterparts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the suspense is mounting, mightily.

Finally, the Hermes crew - the spaceship manned by Watney's fellow rocketeers, still believing him dead - making their long, tedious trip home, are informed of the situation. Jessica Chastain is Melissa Lewis, the flight commander whose decision it was to leave Watney behind; Kate Mara is the crew's tech expert; Michael Peña pilots the Hermes; Aksel Hennie is the chemist onboard; and Sebastian Stan is the flight doctor. Zero G-ing around in space, they assess the news, deciding what, if anything, they can do.

The Martian doesn't have the aura of existential doom that permeates Scott's Alien, and it lacks the moviemaking virtuosity of a more recent lost-in-space extravaganza, Alfonso Cuarón's Oscar-winning Gravity. But The Martian is stirring and powerful, boasting a commanding performance from Damon.

If this Watney guy can keep alive - and keep his sanity - 50 million miles from home, maybe there's still hope for us Earthbound schmos, after all.

srea@phillynews.com

215-854-5629

@Steven_Rea

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Directed by Ridley Scott. With Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.

Running time: 2 hours, 21 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes).

Playing at: Area theaters.EndText