By far the best part about Ridley Scott’s The Martian is Matt Damon’s performance. It is gripping and moving.  If played by anyone else, the film would not have the same effect.

He shows this throughout, especially when he’s struck with tragedy and has to perform surgery on himself as an opening scene.

Apart from Damon’s character, the balancing of three distinctly different groups (Damon, his crew, and Earth) is paced perfectly and never skips or holds on too long to a beat.

This movie is much less heavily a space movie than you’d expect (e.g. Interstellar) and gets much more human, focusing on human interactions and humor instead of beautiful scenes of the stars. That concept is reinforced by the retro soundtrack, which is likeable during the film, but too similar to 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy to really be enjoyable.

Overall, it’s an delightful experience watching the movie, but it’s not very impressive alone.