Spoiler free review of The Martian

I attended a Cineworld Unlimited screening of The Martian last night, having recently inhaled the book and thought I'd share my thoughts with anyone considering whether to go see it. The review will be spoiler free, for both book and movie.



Firstly, let me say I absolutely adored the book. I've called it a "sci-fi Mysterious Island", which only means anything if you know that, to me, Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island was what I had always hoped Robinson Crusoe would be (and totally wasn't): surviving, (re)building and problem-solving. I know a number of writers who relish in making their protagonists more and more miserable by throwing obstacle after obstacle in their way, but The Martian isn't like that. Oh, it throws plenty of obstacles to Watney, but it cuts that fine balance of threat and hope that keeps me engaged.

I thought the movie was pretty good. I certainly enjoyed it, although it was forced to cut out a lot of book content (which makes Mark's journey seem a lot easier to someone who's read the book, but perhaps still quite challenging to someone new to the story). I was a little sad the Hindu Venkat Kapoor turned into a half-Hindu-half-Baptist/undecided/agnostic Vincent Kapoor in the movie, but he was still pretty good, given we had less time to get to know him (again, limited movie time). I was a little sad Mitch Henderson had less of a spine in the film and that the film, overall, felt a lot more drama-heavy than the book did. (The book, despite being about a man struggling to survive on Mars, is actually a lot of fun and the most I've laughed out loud to a book in a long while.) This was particularly bad with the small change they made to the end, but made a difference throughout, I think.

But I think they did a reasonably good job at bringing the book to film. I absolutely adored the fact that, where the book has a line saying something like "if this were a movie, X would've happened, but, of course, this isn't that kind of story", X happens in the movie. I mean, they might not have done it on purpose, but I chose to believe they did and was very amused.

The one thing I would say about this book and movie, though, is that, unlike in every other instance of books-turned-film, I would actually recommend reading the book first, then seeing the movie. My husband (who saw it with me) strongly disagrees and I think it's because he enjoys different things about the book. For me, the book goes a lot more in-depth into the thinking and problem-solving that Mark does (not to mention cover more problems) that I would've hated having that spoiled by having seen the cut down version in the movie first. As always, of course, your mileage may vary.

I would say: do both, if you can, first book, then movie; if not, just read the book, it's excellent.