The Aries III crew has been living on Mars and exploring the planet Mars for NASA for a few days when a fierce sandstorm threatened the lives of the whole team. During the evacuation process, astronaut and botanist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is buried in the rusty sand and the rest of the team evacuates presuming him dead. When Watney wakes up, he finds himself alone on the red planet. Watney now has to find a way to grow food, produce oxygen, and make contact with NASA so they can send supplies and formulate a rescue.

“The Martian” is an immersive experience, with CGI effects that make it look and feel as though you are standing next to Damon as he journeys across the planet making crazy inventions and even cultivating potatoes on a planet where nothing grows.This movie is a bit longer then most, boasting a run-time of 144 minutes, about 20 minutes longer than the average movie length. Yet every extra second is packed full of action, exciting science experiments, and comedy.

“The Martian” is based on a book by the same name written by Andy Weir which, sadly, I have not yet read. The book, supposedly, goes into far more detail then the movie but more or less follows the same plot, providing the reader with far more details about Watney’s attempt to get back home.

Making a total of $335,833,031 worldwide and reaching number one in the box office, people went nuts for the loveable stranded astronaut and the team of NASA scientists working hard to bring him home. IMDb gives The Martian a 8.3/10 starts and Rotten Tomatoes puts it at 93%. I personally tend to avoid space films, movies like “Interstellar” and “Gravity,” which aren’t able to captivate me with a minute long trailer, thus making me question how am I supposed to be entertained by it for two hours? Yet, when I first saw the trailer for “The Martian” I was hooked, the idea of being stuck on a desolate planet, utterly alone and with all the odds against you was enthralling, and the movie shattered the fairly low standard I had previously established for “stuck-in-space” movies. I would give “The Martian” a strong 4.5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it to anyone who likes space, adventure, comedy, or is just looking to escape reality for a little while.