“The Martian” is Everything You Want it to Be

An astronaut in the third manned mission to Mars becomes stranded during a storm. Believing him dead, his crew aborts their mission, abandons the planet, and launches back toward Earth. A botanist by trade and trapped in a harsh climate, the stranded Mark Watney (Matt Damon) has to figure out how to collect water, grow plants in unfriendly soil, and survive the harsh temperatures of Mars.

All the while, NASA must figure out how to help him, communicate, and (perhaps most interestingly) navigate the needs of a rescue mission through a politically aggressive media.

At the center of the story, Damon balances desperation with a sort of positive, confident, self-deprecating attitude, as if playing Chris Pratt with a dramatic range. It’s a superb display of trying to remain mentally healthy and positive in what would otherwise be a depressing and hopeless survival situation. Even if the focus of the film isn’t on big moments of acting, Damon textures the role with a great deal of nuance. The film doesn’t use elongated, weepy moments as a crutch. Watney loses his cool, enjoys success and failure, and struggles to remain stable at points, but this isn’t “Cast Away.” Damon is excellent, but his emotional state isn’t the focus here; his actions are. In this way, he carries the film’s momentum on his shoulders.

Damon is something special in the film, but he’s not the only one. As his mission commander Melissa Lewis, Jessica Chastain (“Interstellar”) continues conveying entire character histories with just a glance. Her ability to be an emotionally open book and a consummate professional all at once is recognizable to audiences because most of us struggle with that balance in our daily lives. Even if Lewis gets a fraction of the screen time Watney does, everything about her is humanity at its best and most responsible. Few actors could command so much loyalty in the space of a handful of scenes.

On the ground, NASA is in the hands of administrators played by Sean Bean, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Kristen Wiig. Decisions range from assembling another supply mission to keep Watney fed, to whether to tell the crew who left him that he remains alive. Surprisingly, these decisions hold as much intensity as Watney’s unique struggle. Balancing the practical with the political on Earth becomes as life-or-death for Watney as things like food and water.

There’s an incredible translation of science happening in the film. Watney relies on his scientific know-how, on knowledge of botany, chemistry, electronics, and astrophysics that are masterfully translated for the audience. Complex ideas are skillfully communicated in simple, practical ways.

This plays into one of the most remarkable things about “The Martian.” It is by far the least “Ridley Scott” of director Ridley Scott’s movies. After a string of films that’s gone from “Prometheus” to “The Counselor” to “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” each one more trapped inside of its own style than the last, it’s refreshing to know Scott can still just tell a story. “The Martian” isn’t subject to strange visual experiments or odd editing. If anything, its visual storytelling errs on the side of safe. That works for a film like this. The story is so compelling, the actors so commanding, too much extra style might have ultimately become too distracting. Scott instead relies on techniques he’s often avoided in his career: rapid jump-cut editing, voice-over, point-of-view shots, fast-motion, and a relatively still camera.

The easiest comparison in subject matter would be the most recent stranded-in-space film, “Gravity.” These are two very different movies, however. “Gravity” envelops viewers in a visceral experience reminiscent of horror movies. “The Martian” offers a very different kind of intensity. It evokes something less existential and more practical. If anything, “The Martian” takes on a very matter-of-fact tone that resembles one of the most realistic portrayals of space disaster, “Apollo 13.”

One extra note: Ridley Scott has become one of the premier directors of 3D. As many other problems as “Prometheus” and “Exodus” had, their 3D was downright sumptuous. “The Martian” is no different, and its otherworldly setting offers up a lot of opportunities both before and beyond the screen. Flying dust, bits of debris, and a looming spaceship all feature. So do vast Martian canyons and valleys, calling upon the haunting beauty and loneliness of being stranded in a strange wilderness. His 3D is exceptionally detailed and makes tremendous use of the foreground. Nausea’s not a problem because there’s not a ton of fast movement, but if you get headaches, that’s from the foreground detail. In this case, sit a little further back in the theater, so that you’re at least the height of the middle of the screen. Of course, the film will play exceptionally in 2D as well without losing its beauty.

There’s language, brief rear nudity, and a scene of injury, but it’s very safe for children and I’d highly encourage it as a family film that can help spur discussions about science and space.

Does it Pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test?

This section uses the Bechdel-Wallace Test as a foundation to discuss the representation of women in film.

1. Does “The Martian” have more than one woman in it?

Yes. Jessica Chastain plays Mission Commander Melissa Lewis. Kate Mara plays astronaut Beth Johanssen. Kristen Wiig plays NASA Public Affairs Officer Annie Montrose. Mackenzie Davis plays specialist Mindy Park.

2. Do they talk to each other?

Yes.

3. About something other than a man?

Yes. There are points when it could be read either way – in talking about rescuing Watney, are they talking about him or are they talking about a rescue operation? Either way, there are other things discussed outside of this.

In space, women seem to be in charge, and I detailed just how well Jessica Chastain delivers her role as the mission commander. It’s also worth noting that – after Chastain’s Lewis – Kate Mara’s Johanssen seems to have the most agency within the crew.

On the ground, it’s a different story. Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Sean Bean exert more power and enjoy more agency in their characters than Kristen Wiig and Mackenzie Davis do. Wiig and Davis play characters whose jobs involve being answerable to these men (well, at least to Daniels and Ejiofor).

It’s therefore a mixed bag, and because the focus of half the story is on Watney alone, it makes the film difficult to judge along these lines. In other words, it features three storylines, in order of screen time given to them:

• Watney surviving alone on Mars, which does not pass the Bechdel Test for obvious reasons.
• A male-driven corporate structure in NASA, which briefly passes at least the first two questions of the Bechdel-Wallace Test, but not really their spirit.
• A kick-ass group of astronauts powered by two strong, intelligent, and decisive women leaders and role models that passes both the rule and spirit of the Bechdel-Wallace Test, including an incredibly heroic leader in Chastain’s Lewis.

The only other thing I’ll note is that I appreciate how much Chastain’s performance gives us someone who can lead without being emotionally closed off. The unfortunate perception among many is that women cannot share emotion in the way a man can and still be trusted to lead; a woman leader has to be cold in order for many to think she’s qualified. It’s bullshit, of course, but it’s also a perception that many women have to at least acknowledge and be aware of when taking on leadership positions in the U.S. I appreciate that Chastain threw that on its head. She delivers an engaging, inspiring, emotionally forthright leader who commands not through coldness and aloofness, but through collaboration, communication, and a refined and experienced sense of moral, logical, and emotional judgment.

On another note, I have read some accusations of race-bending many of the roles. I have not read the book, so I cannot speak to this. “The Martian” does feature people of color more than most films, but that’s not necessarily saying much. For NASA especially, it does seem heavy on white characters. I don’t know how accurately this lines up with its source material.

Yes, we do get Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, and Michael Pena in very positive roles and positions of responsibility, but that’s still merely 3 of the top 12 actors billed.

Where did we get our awesome images? The feature image comes from Collider’s review. The top and bottom images (both with Jessica Chastain) come from Collider’s interview with Chastain.

Not Moses’ Best Outing — “Exodus: Gods and Kings”

by Gabriel Valdez

The Biblical tale of Moses leading the Hebrew tribes out of Egypt has been told countless times on film. Charlton Heston most famously parted the Red Sea. Val Kilmer voiced Moses in the 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt. Ben Kingsley did it for TV. Now, Christian Bale takes on the mantle in the very serious-minded adaptation Exodus: Gods and Kings, directed by Ridley Scott.

Raised with his brother Ramses (Joel Edgerton) as a son of the Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro), Bale’s Moses is a leader and tactician who hides a secret – he was really born among the Hebrew tribes as a slave to the Egyptians he now helps rule. Exodus is the story of his exile and the mission he’s later given by God – to free the Hebrew tribes from Egyptian rule.

Exodus has some glaring flaws. It treats Moses’ story as a series of spectacles, roaring ahead during times of action, yet practically falling asleep in between them. Scott is respectful to the story and its characters while taking liberties with the narrative, but he fails to find any breathing space in between the film’s largest moments. We never get to see our characters, say, look at the stars or sit down to dinner or even take a deep breath before a sentence.

Focusing only on the famous moments, the whole effort begins to feel like the slowest highlight reel ever created. You can feel the film wanting to take some chances and get philosophical, but it just won’t pull the trigger, perhaps because it’s too afraid of upsetting part of its audience. We have a narrative that takes chances with the character Moses, but then shies away and fails to give us any reason for taking them. We have moments of rare cinematic beauty, but the beauty is never used for any storytelling purpose.

The tone is so serious throughout that we’re left with only one emotionally resonant moment, and this belongs to the villain, Ramses. Not all movies need emotion or a greater meaning, but this is the story of Moses and it feels like anything but a spiritual journey. At times, you even begin to wonder if it’s Moses’ highlight reel we’re watching, or Ridley Scott’s.

Exodus can also begin to feel a little like play-acting at times. I won’t delve into the ethics of casting so many Caucasian actors in Egyptian roles. Instead, I’ll just point out that it can make the biggest movie feel quite small: when accents briefly slip, you can quickly find yourself watching Welsh Moses talking to the Pharaoh from Brooklyn while his brother Ramses is trying so hard to not sound Australian that he doesn’t sound like he’s from much of anywhere.

The performances are good, but even the best performers aren’t immune to moments like this. When these actors face off, relatively small inconsistencies build off each other and create much larger problems that can sabotage whole scenes. Exodus isn’t rife with this, but its slow pace and emotional distance create too much room to avoid noticing.

I do need to highlight the 3-D. There are grand vistas, cityscapes, and thousand-foot views of battlefields. The sequence showing Egypt’s plagues is energetic and captivating. That’s expected. What’s not is the unparalleled use of subtle “before the window” effects: floating embers, glittering flecks of sand, flies, sun glare, dust and smoke. The 3-D here is exquisite. It is beyond good. It is sumptuous. This whole review could have been 700 synonyms for how good the 3-D is.

Exodus itself isn’t good or bad. It’s occasionally great and occasionally terrible. This is a middle of the road film filled with absolutely visionary moments and some very good acting sabotaged by a cold, remote, and homogenized approach to storytelling.

Religious audiences will like how respectfully it’s told, even if they will want to discuss the number of details that are changed. Audiences looking for spectacle will definitely find it, but they’ll have to be immensely patient for long stretches in order to earn it. Film buffs will love the technical elements – costuming, cinematography, sumptuous 3D – but won’t have much tolerance for its lackluster storytelling and stop-and-go pace. For every moment of Exodus that stuns, there’s a longer moment that grinds you down as a viewer. It evokes surprisingly little thought and emotion for its subject matter.

Does it Pass the Bechdel Test?

This section helps us discuss one aspect of movies that we’d like to see improved – the representation of women. Read why we’re including this section here.

1. Does Exodus: Gods and Kings have more than one woman in it?

Yes. Sigourney Weaver plays Moses’ adoptive mother Tuya, while Hiam Abbass plays Bithia. Maria Valverde plays Moses’ wife Zipporah. Indira Varma plays the Pharaoh’s High Priestess.

2. Do they talk to each other?

No. There’s a charged scene involving Tuya and Bithia, but they don’t talk to each other – they talk to the men instead. Even when Moses is saying his goodbyes to family, women may stand next to each other but they only speak to him.

3. About something other than a man?

Well, they don’t talk to each other, so the film doesn’t even get this far. When women speak to men in the film, it’s usually about a man, though they briefly speak of war and plagues.

Final verdict: Ugh. The narrative treatment of women in this film is awful. I could, perhaps, understand women having very little agency in the narrative because the Bible doesn’t give women very much agency in its narratives. That said, film history is full of female characters who still get up to interesting things despite a lack of agency.

In part, this is due to the highlight reel nature of the film. If it doesn’t have to do with Moses or Ramses, it’s not in the film. I understand that approach, but again, Exodus has very little reason for this approach. Look to other epics that didn’t give women much to do – from Lawrence of Arabia to Steven Soderbergh’s pair of Che biopics – at least they had a reason for their restricted narratives. Hell, I don’t believe even Luc Besson’s underrated The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, which almost never leaves its female protagonist’s side, passes the Bechdel Test. But these all used restricted narratives to create a psychological portrait of their characters – at least there’s a reason they do what they do.

Exodus wants to focus on its pair of brothers – that’s fine – but because their story is so grand and epic, and involves women at key points in the film, it seems a complete waste that they have absolutely nothing to do. Women are more often shown standing by, hands folded and saying nothing, than doing anything or speaking a word.

I’ll write more on how ugly a film Exodus is later in the week. I was willing to give Ridley Scott the benefit of the doubt until I’d seen it, but its scripting is sexist, its casting (and arguably its make-up) is racist, and one character is blatantly homophobic.

Go Watch This: Medieval Combat Techniques Hollywood Ignores

by Gabriel Valdez

This quick video is a superb illustration of all the things movies get wrong about combat in heavy armor. We like to think that they all fought like Gandalf and Aragorn, whirling dervishes of blades whipping this way and that while cutting down enemies with a single blow. I’m a big fan of that fantastical style of swordplay – I even wrote an essay about fight choreography as myth, using Troy and Serenity as examples.

All that said, I wouldn’t mind an historical movie that actually treats combat in heavy armor like the mix of precision strikes and ground-based grappling it really was. Mel Gibson involved some in the choreography for Braveheart, while Ridley Scott has come close with his choreographies in films like Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood, but Hollywood is still a good distance away from giving us real, gritty choreographies that are more thrusts and grapples than wild swings and balletic dodges.

Observe a more accurate view of the mobility of heavy armor and the techniques used in medieval warfare:

Thanks to Wilson Freeman of Drifting Focus Photography for the heads up on this.

Best Movies Never Made — “Gladiator 2”

Everyone writes Throwback Thursdays, and there are some great ones out there. They’re all kind of exclusive, though. They only review films that actually exist. What about all those Thursdays that never happened?

From Alfred Hitchcock’s nudie flick Kaleidoscope to David Fincher’s Rendezvous with Rama, we’ll cover everything from the biggest movies never made (Steven Soderbergh’s Cleopatra, anyone?) to long-forgotten treasures (Clair Noto’s sci-fi masterpiece The Tourist). The stories behind them are as interesting as the films themselves. Some were killed for their budgets, some for their politics. Many sank when their auteurs foundered, others were sabotaged by affairs, and still more fell victim to studios unwilling to take risks.

We’ll start with one of the biggest sequels never made: Gladiator 2.

BACKGROUND

The release of Gladiator on May 5, 2000 was considered risky. Back then, the summer movie season didn’t start until June, when schools let out (now it starts in March). The story of Roman general Maximus – who is enslaved as a gladiator and challenges a corrupt emperor – harkened back to sword-and-sandal classics like Spartacus.

The $103 million Ridley Scott film, aside from giving us the confusing gift of Joaquin Phoenix, made $457 million worldwide. Before the advent of streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, it also did terrific business on DVD.

It also won Best Picture, rare for a film released so early in the year, especially in such a contentious field: its competition included Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Steven Soderbergh twin threat of Traffic and Erin Brockovich. Though many felt Wonder Boys or Almost Famous (really, people?) deserved its spot, count me as one of the lonely voices that favored Lasse Hallstrom’s dark horse Chocolat over the whole bunch.

Gladiator nabbed Russell Crowe an Oscar in the second year of three straight he was nominated, upsetting early favorite Tom Hanks (Cast Away). The film also picked up Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound.

THE PITCH

Gladiator was in the unique position of being both a Best Picture winner and a financially successful summer action movie. It’s not as if you could make American Beauty 2 (although it was discussed) or An Even More Beautiful Mind. There was only one problem, and this is where the spoilers start: Crowe’s heroic General Maximus dies in the end.

A prequel was the most obvious way to bring back Crowe and Maximus. His history of Roman conquests could provide the action while building his loving family (which the audience knew was doomed) could provide the poignancy. It didn’t stick, though – all these things had been established in the first movie. So far, it sounded like a direct-to-DVD affair.

Original writer John Logan shifted gears to a sequel that could take place years later and feature the nephew of corrupt Emperor Commodus – the innocent young Lucius, who becomes emperor at the end of the first film.

One version got rid of Crowe entirely, while another crammed together both the past and future – half prequel covering Maximus’ rise through the ranks, half sequel regarding Lucius’ own fight against corrupt politicians. (The approach has been compared to that of The Godfather Part II.) Both versions revealed that Lucius was the secret lovechild of Maximus and Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla, a needless contrivance that could have seriously undermined too many emotional beats in the first Gladiator.

These approaches all sound pretty ho-hum, don’t they? They’re all too safe. Since when did Russell Crowe, in the middle of Oscar nominations and his Fightin’ Around the World tour, do safe? So Crowe asked a mate of his, Australian goth rocker Nick Cave, to take a stab at Gladiator 2. Between leading bands The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Grinderman, Cave is arguably goth music’s single most influential artist. Crowe asked Cave to research the Roman afterlife and look into ways Maximus could be brought back to life via the gods. What did Cave do?

He went certifiably batshit.

If you can imagine What Dreams May Come smashed together with The Crow and an ultraviolent Forrest Gump, you might begin to grasp at what Cave delivered. In his version, Maximus is offered a deal by the dying Roman gods to hunt down the traitor Hephaestus. Maximus, of course, finds him – Hephaestus is on his last legs, and resurrects Maximus to serve penance as an immortal who walks the earth.

The bulk of the story follows Maximus defending early Christians and his resurrected son Marius from the bloodthirsty Romans under the command of a Lucius so malevolent, they could have stuck Phoenix back in the role and no one would’ve blinked. He’s aided by his occasional spirit guide Mordecai.

Maximus survives to see Christianity take hold, later fighting in the Crusades, leading a tank charge in World War 2, and unleashing a flamethrower on the Vietcong. Wait, what? Yes, Maximus essentially turns into Highlander for the Tea Party. In the end, we see Maximus in the Pentagon. Mordecai’s last words – depending on your interpretation – imply that either the world is about to end, or that Maximus is doomed to continue fighting into eternity.

And the whole movie is spliced together with footage of a dying deer and visions of Maximus’ wife, doomed to Purgatory.

WHAT WENT WRONG

The studio balked. There was no way they’d spend $150 million to make an esoteric art film that would’ve risked the loyalty of the fans. Gladiator possessed no supernatural or divine elements, and to make a sequel based solely around these additions felt too mad.

The strange thing is, according to all accounts, the screenplay was a work of genius. Crowe stood by it tooth-and-nail, and it was eventually the ONLY sequel to Gladiator that Scott might have returned to direct (although this may have been Scott’s polite way of saying he wouldn’t return for a sequel.)

Cave’s script was leaked years ago – reviews were unanimously favorable. You might find that hard to believe, but try watching the next film Cave scripted, The Proposition, and then tell me the man can’t write.

THE FALLOUT

Russell Crowe continued delivering Oscar-worthy performances, but in this humble critic’s opinion, his best performance stands as his most overlooked – he wasn’t nominated for his role as Captain Aubrey in Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. Despite widespread reports that he’d fought with Scott incessantly during the making of Gladiator, the two reunited for four more films (A Good Year, American Gangster, Body of Lies, and Robin Hood).

Ridley Scott himself enjoyed a sort of golden era. He pumped out eight major films in the next eight years, and the production company he’d started with his brother, director Tony Scott (since deceased), took off. In its 20 years of existence before Gladiator, it had produced 10 films. In the 14 years since Gladiator, it’s produced more than 40.

Scott himself returned to the sword-and-sandals genre in 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, and the upcoming Exodus: Gods and Kings. On a critical note, the theatrical release of Kingdom of Heaven was a mess; the director’s cut is Scott’s best film. Combined with Blade Runner, Scott now boasts the two films most heavily screwed over in the history of Fox Studios.

And Nick Cave? In a broad sense, facets of Cave’s screenplay were adapted – or at least echoed – in The Proposition. The 2005 Australian period piece is both brutally nasty and philosophically haunting. Its monologues stay with me even all these years later. Guy Pearce and Emily Watson delivered two of the best performances of their careers, and it helped introduce director John Hillcoat (who later directed The Road and Cave-scripted Lawless).

As a musician, Cave’s made some of the best albums of recent years – Push the Sky Away was one of my top 5 albums of 2013, and you can’t go wrong with Grinderman 2.

Gladiator 2 will never be realized. It remains a film that I’d very much like to have seen not just for its novelty, but for how bravely it might’ve turned the original film’s formula on its head.

ADDED BONUS

An Historian Goes to the Movies recently wrote two articles regarding the historical accuracy of Gladiator. You might be surprised how well many of its details hold up:

Gladiator: Why Did Commodus Become Emperor?

Gladiator: Just How Bad an Emperor was Commodus?