The Martian movie review

The Martian is a movie adaptation of a book. Once again, I won't review it with reference of the original material because I haven't read it yet.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

I've known Ridley Scott for his Aliens anthology. Since Exodus, he made a good interpretation of the Mosaic account. From Biblical stories, Ridley Scott transports us in a possible future. We know for fact that there's no manned mission to Mars yet but we already made a successful step when we put the Mars Rover Curiosity in the Mars landscape.

The story starts with a manned Mars exploration in the Mars landscape when mission crew botanist Mark Wattney(played by Matt Damon) was presumed dead and was left alone in the planet during a storm while the rest of the crew evacuated. The movie didn't indicate what date but from what I see, it is not far off from the prospect plans on the future of space exploration.

This movie also taught me a new term called sol. Since it's another planet in the Solar System, you can't follow the traditional measurement of time at Earth. Since all the planets rotate around the Sun, the term sol is used as a timekeeping not just in Mars but also in the rest of the planets in this Solar System. For the case of the planet Mars, One solar day or one sol is equivalent to 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds.

The movie is semi- SciFi because there is still about the movie that is not realized yet like the manned mission to Mars and the craft used to go to the planet but for Mark Wattney's case, it can also happen in this planet. People got lost in the mountains or forests anytime and in the sea as well. Although our planet is already mapped out, we still haven't charted our planet especially beneath the ocean level. I was reminded of the story of Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson and Wattney is a futuristic addition of the marooned.

The Martian is also a movie about survival, Whether you are in the Mars or in our own landscape, you must learn how to survive if any similar incident happens. I believe The Martian is the best movie that will open this week since it is the only movie I've seen so far. For more movie reviews, follow this blog and like L.E.N.S. blogs on Facebook. The Martian opens September 30 in Philippine cinemas.