STACK 132 October Issue

28 / 120

Mars movies have generally failed to
engage audiences, unless it's the red
planet attacking us. Even big name
directors have crashed and burned on its rocky
surface, like Brian De Palma with the miserable
Mission to Mars in 2000. Enter Ridley Scott, who
makes amends for the hash that was Prometheus
with a far more satisfying return to the genre.
Recently stranded on a planet in another
universe in Interstellar, Matt Damon again finds
himself as an astronaut cast away, albeit this
time closer to home. Left behind and presumed
dead after the Ares III mission is forced to make
an emergency lift off from the Martian surface,
Damon is faced with the predicament of how he's
going to survive, and more importantly, contact
NASA to arrange a rescue mission.
Fortunately the habitat base is still operational,
and even more fortunately, he's a botanist who
can get potatoes to grow in human waste. And
rather than dwell on the hopelessness of his
situation, he's an optimistic and cheery chap, and
it's his humorous outlook (when most of us would
curl up in a corner and wait for the oxygen to run
out), resourcefulness and determination to
"science the shit" out of his dilemma that
makes The Martian so damn entertaining.
Moreover, the addition of a soundtrack full
of disco hits (left behind by the mission's
commander, Jessica Chastain) adds a quirky
and incongruous touch to the proceedings.
This is an atypical Ridley Scott movie: the
spectacle and detail is all there (the Martian
landscape, rovers, spacecraft and orbital
sequences), only this time there's also a
sense that Scott knows he's making a big,
crowd-pleasing blockbuster, one that feels
more like Ron Howard than the man who
gave us Alien and Blade Runner.
The Martian is more than just Robinson
Crusoe on Mars without the monkey – like
Saving Private Ryan, it never lets us forget
that "the mission is a man". A survival story
that celebrates the endurance of the human
spirit without the obligatory spoonful of sugar,
it's got all the right stuff. Scott Hocking
FURTHER VIEWING:Interstellar, Robinson Crusoe on Mars
visit REVIEWS CINEMA
Is there life on Mars? Yes – Matt Damon, in Ridley Scott's hugely entertaining return to sci-fi.
THE MARTIAN RELEASED: Oct 1
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels
RATING: CTC
028 OCTOBER 2015
From its opening frame, Sicario is a
masterful experience. Employing equal
measures of intense sound, engaging
cinematography (this is how you use ‘drones’,
people!) and no-nonsense acting usually
reserved for high-end TV, you’ll be on the edge
of your seat for the majority of the two hour
ride on this violent rollercoaster.
Emily Blunt is the capable FBI agent who
wants to play fair, but also wants satisfaction
for losing members of her team after a
booby-trapped raid. With this as a carrot, she
agrees to be a part of a somewhat confusing
taskforce (Brolin, del Toro) whose mission,
alongside a menagerie of mercenaries, is to
infiltrate the higher echelons of a Mexican drug
cartel. What will soon be clear is playing fair
gets no results, and perhaps not all members
of the crew have the same objective.
No, this isn’t a ‘I knew that guy was a
baddie!’ style twist-and-turn affair. It’s instead
a nail-biting slow reveal of the machinations
behind crime fighting when the rules don’t
apply, or are ineffective. With set pieces to
rival anything Ridley Scott or Michael
Mann have ever achieved (a Mexican
border crossing sequence you will never
forget) and an ever-present sense of
doom, excitement and amazing sensory
immersion (if the sound design doesn’t
win an Oscar, they're all deaf), Sicario
is a hard-boiled triumph of frenetic
filmmaking which has seemingly popped
up out of the blue when lesser films get
all the media attention.
To know that director Denis Villeneuve
(Incendies , Prisoners) is at the helm of
the upcoming Untitled Blade Runner
Project should give all naysayers a sense
of calm and reassurance. This guy makes
cinema that holds you by the throat,
beats you up a little bit, and cuts you
loose when it’s had enough with you.
Yes! Oh, and ‘Sicario’ means ‘hitman’
in Spanish – we’ll just leave that there.
Chris Murray
FURTHER VIEWING: Traffic, Prisoners
Gritty, intense, cinematic and explosive – this is the serious actioner you’ve always wanted on dirty tactics employed to
deal with the most violent drug cartels in Mexico.
SICARIO RELEASED: Now Showing
DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve
CAST: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro
RATING: MA15+