The Martian

About a year ago one of the guys in my office stopped by my cube while I was working late to tell me about this great new audiobook he's listening to. Turns out it got made into a feature film.

Last week I powered through the audiobook myself while at my desk. In fact, I finished it on Friday just in time for the movie to hit theatres that day.

How was the book? Pretty damn good although it does fall into a couple of traps. First, at times it derails into a lot of science talk. I'm perfectly good with that; I'm an engineer. But that's a double edged sword - while I an appreciate the science talk I know a good chunk of it already and don't want to sit through it again.

The second fault is one of the problems with a story like this. So Mark Whatney is trapped on Mars all by himself and his daily existence is fighting to survive, It's essential to the story. This type of narrative needs adversity, in this case Man vs Nature. Well, Man vs Mars. But there gets to a point where one most thing goes wrong for Whatney and I reach a fatigue where I become numb to Mars just shitting on Whatney again and again.

Otherwise it's a great story, one worth reading. The science is (mostly) sound, the writing snappy, and Whatney is full of great monologue in the form of his mission logs, which are the bulk of the book. He's funny, nerdy, and full of pop culture. In short, he's super relatable for the target audience.

So how's the movie? Matt Damon is perfect for the role of Whatney. The cinematography is fantastic and does an amazing job of showing the fantastic Martian landscapes while evoking Whatney's loneliness. He is the only man on the planet, after all.

But the biggest thing here is Ridley Scott. When he's on, he's on and here HE IS ON. This film actually makes up for PROMETHEUS (but only just). THE MARTIAN really showcases Scott's  ability as a director and his ability to share his vision.

Sadly, the movie's not entirely perfect, especially compared to the book. Most of the book is on the screen. All the major beats and incidents are there except one, which would have ruined the pacing and made the movie way too long. The other big difference is the ending. I don't want to go into details, but I liked the book ending much better even if the movie's ending works better as a film.

Overall the biggest praise I can give this film is that it's in the league of 2001 for really showcasing hard science fiction and media like STAR TREK for being inspirational. Not just that, but somewhere this is a 12 year old girl that will see this movie and decide she wants to go to Mars. And she will.

Movie Review: Terminator Genisys

One of the neat things about my new home is that I live near a second run theatre. That's right, the "dollar cinema" where movies that aren't on the bigger screens are only a dollar. It's a bit run down but IT'S A DOLLAR. I remember going to the dollar show as a kid and getting to watch two or three movies.

Anyway, I got to see TERMINATOR GENISYS and only paid a dollar. I got my money's worth.

TERMINATOR GENISYS feels like a couple of movie executives were in a dim room doing a ton of blow and one says to the other, "Dude, what if Kyle Reese goes back in time and Sarah Connor tell him 'Come with me if you want to live'!"*

If you haven't seen the trailer that spoils the movie's big reveal, don't worry, I'm not going to mention it. Instead, here's a brief summary of this movie's attempt at a plot/

This time around a terminator is sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor when she was young, so she winds up growing up to be a warrior by the time of the first TERMINATOR movie. And she keeps her terminator around like a pet, calling him Pops. This is such a horrible, radical shift in characterization for Sarah. Her original arc is from a scared, helpless girl to a capable, tough as nails woman, training her son to be a leader. Now she's just supposed to be a badass out of the gate and to be honest it doesn't play well.

Kyle shows up and pretty much  it's T2, only this time around Kyle is Sarah, Sarah is John, and the terminator is still a terminator. Kyle doesn't trust it, Sarah does and it's programmed to obey her, oh and there's a T-1000 around here somewhere hunting them. It's like Hollywood has decided that every franchise needs the same reboot framework as STAR TREK. The original timeline is gone, welcome to the future, baby! Or past. Or...whatever.

And then they time travel to 2017 to stop Skynet from coming on line at the last minute. That's fucking stupid. YOU HAVE A TIME MACHINE WHY ARE YOU JUMPING TO JUST BEFORE IT COMES ONLINE? Or just not time travel and take care of things in the passing years. You know, like the "Sarah Connor Chronicles" was doing a great job of. But that Sarah is gone, shit.

However, if you turn off your brain and remember that you only paid a dollar it's a spectacle of lights and noise. And a little fun, in that summer blockbuster way. Now I'm not recommending you rush out and see it. Or even watch it on purpose. But if it's raining outside and it's GENISYS or some Z-Grade Mockbuster knock-off on Netflix, try GENISYS.

But don't pay more than $1.


* Yes, Birth.Movies.Death. came to the same conclusion I did, but I promise I didn't rip them off. This time.

Movie review: Dracula Untold

Ever wanted to see a movie that takes a classic, iconic monster and makes him a noble hero fighting for his people? No, me neither.

The best thing I can say about DRACULA UNTOLD is that it's better than I, FRANKENSTEIN. While I actually liked THE WOLFMAN redux, if this how Universal is going to try to update their classic monsters I'm really, really disappointed. I guess it wouldn't be as bad if Dracula as still an anti-hero but he's a straight up hero now, even as a murdering, blood sucking vampire.

Speaking of vampires, I really want to cry seeing Charles Dance reduced to this. I mean, a paycheck might be a paycheck but I'd expect he'd be rolling in that Game of Thrones money. Throw in some really weird makeup choices and I'm not sure what's up with him.

I'd like to go into the plot a little but it's completely forgettable. Like I should have taken notes on this. So many reviews compare this to MALEFICIENT, but I managed to avoid that one. I wish I had avoided this one. Since it's horribly unimaginative I'll just leave some great pull quotes from reviews.

"Might be worth seeing solely for the moment when Dracula says, "I'm worth 1,000 boys and you know it." - Scott Weinberg, TheHorrorShow

"It's just a bunch of nonexistent people getting knocked over by nonexistent bats." - Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com