The Martian

Hello dear reader, it’s time once again to offer up my opinions on my most recent trip to the cinema. The film in question this time is of ‘The Martian’ but before I tell you the story about the film I need to, if you’ll indulge me, tell you the story about the book, which the film is based on… 

Along time ago, in a galaxy far far away lived a man by the name of Andy Weir. This man, as luck would have it, had never been stranded on another planet. Not even Mars but he did think it would be a great idea to write a book about someone who was. At the time Mr Weir had no publishing deal in place and in fact the closest he’d ever come to getting anything he’d written exposed to the big wide world was on a website where he would upload short stories.  There he was, sitting on this idea to write a story. Set in the not too distant future. About a man, who through no fault of his own, gets left behind in a totally hostile and inhospitable environment. The planet equivalent of Basildon, if you will. Mr Weir, by his own admission, had a few things in his favour when he started to create this story. Firstly, he is a huge ‘space nerd’, likes ‘relativistic physics’ and as luck would have it has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of ‘manned spaceflight’. His ultimate goal was twofold. He wanted to compose something that would engage the reader and because he was a ‘space nerd’ he also wanted to make sure the science in his new story was correct. So much so, that he wrote his own computer programs to calculate travel times and make sure he got his flight paths hyper accurate. 

Now, as it turns out Mr Weir decided to serialise this novel online. This did two things; firstly it kept people coming back for more and secondly it meant he didn’t have to be finished before he started to upload it. The initial response for the book was more than Weir could ever have hoped for. He was soon being inundated with requests for the finished book to be made available on Kindle, thus making it easier to read on the move. After doing some quick research he found out that you can ‘self-publish’ pretty much whatever you’d like on Kindle and with weeks of his first request he had it available to download for the cheapest price available, 99 cents. Again, the response was nothing short of stunning and word of mouth soon spread. So much so, that within months of it first going live he had publishers asking if they could release it in paperback. Once it was it was only a short time before it started to garner interest from Hollywood. And the rest, as they say, is history. Twentieth Century Fox put up the money, Ridley Scott directed it and the all-star cast spend just over two hours and twenty minutes trying to bring Matt Damon’s ‘Mark Watney’, home. 

The first time I became aware of the book ‘The Martian’ was in the latter half of 2014. I heard it being discussed by Adam Savage (Mythbusters) on his podcast ‘Tested’. Adam said he was blown away by it and also said that he picked the book up to read on a flight and by his own admission ‘not been able to put it down’. He waxed lyrical about it’s tension, how it was a one man battle against the odds and that he ‘could not recommend it enough!’ Then I found out that it had been given the green light to be turned into a movie and that none other than sci-fi legend Ridley Scott was going to be sitting in the director’s chair. This basically turned what had been mild curiosity to read the book into an almost ‘I have to see this film at all costs’ kind of deal. 

Now to the business of the film itself. For those of you who have been living under a Martian rock (see what I did there) for the last twelve months or so, The Martian tells the story of the first manned missions to Mars. The ‘Ares Missions’ of which there will be at least 5, are for scientific research purposes and the betterment of mankind as a whole etc etc. The Martian concentrates on Ares 3. A mission that has six crew members and is designed to spend thirty one days on the surface of Mars. Things go wrong and the  mission has to commit an emergency evacuation from the surface due to a very large storm heading towards their base camp and it’s during this evacuation that Matt Damon’s ‘Mark Watney’ gets hit by an airborne communications dish and thrown away from the remaining crew as they head for the escape rocket. Or if you want it in technical NASA speak ‘MAV: Mars Ascent Vehicle’. Now, before you can say ‘Where’s there’s blame, there’s a claim’ the commander of the mission, Jessica Chastain’s ‘Melissa Lewis’ has to make the call to leave. This is partly down to the fact that they have no idea where Watney has ended up. Because of the storm and that visibility is practically zero and also because his spacesuit has stopped transmitting his bio read out information. Lewis has to assume that Watney is dead and as the wind speed is also causing the MAV to tilt past what is an acceptable angle for take-off she has to put the lives of the rest of her crew first. They successfully take off and then we cut to the morning after the night before, with Watney face down and half covered in dirt and sand. What follows is basically the story of one man’s determination to not to die on a planet that at best could be described as a ‘long walk’ away. 

Using only what he has at his disposal (Amazon apparently don’t deliver there….yet) he has to set about ensuring his survival and growing enough food until he thinks NASA will be able to stage a rescue. This last part is also dependant on him being able to contact NASA in the first place and telling them he isn’t dead. Not the easiest of tasks when you consider that the only communications system able to contact them was on the MAV. They say that in space no one can hear you scream, well, just for those not in the know, shouting doesn’t work either. 

The Martian is a shade over two hours and twenty minutes long but it doesn’t feel like a long film at all. From the moment things start to go south on Mars, it grabs your attention and doesn’t give you much of a chance to relax. As I mentioned earlier there is a pretty good supporting cast here and a lot of them don’t really get a huge amount of screen time. People like Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean were more than happy to play second fiddle to Matt Damon. I can only assume the calibre of actor willing to take these small parts is down to two reasons. Firstly the director involved and secondly the quality of the screenplay. Oh and if you happen to find yourself in a pub quiz in the not too distant future and you’re asked to name a film that Sean Bean doesn’t die in, write down The Martian. He does lose his job but I am happy to report that he makes it all the way through to the final credits. Isn’t killed by an Orc or anything!

So I’ll finish up by giving you a few do’s and don’ts about The Martain. If you get the chance, do read the book first. It’s funnier than the film and contains a lot more of the science ‘why’s and wherefores’ that go into Watney’s decision making process. Don’t be put off by the thought of watching someone effectively talking to themselves for two hours. Do make sure that if you wear glasses or contact lenses, you have them in or on as the film is visually breath-taking and finally, once you’ve seen it, don’t give away the ending, Iron Man wouldn’t want you to… 

Twitter Review:

If you like your 'abandoned in space' films with a little bit of a disco theme, then The Martian is definitely for you.

#BringHimHome

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/?ref_=nv_sr_2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3ioOneTy8

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=139094

Legend

Hello dear reader. It would appear it’s that time again. To tell tall tales of wonder and exhilaration, to enthral you and fill your head with images of delight and elation. To set the scene and invite you read my humble blog and offer up an opinion on the latest cinematic banquet that I consumed recently. The film in question is Legend and for you of a certain age, I am not referring to the Ridley Scott, Tom Cruise, Tim Curry, Unicorn extravaganza that first saw the light of day back in good old 1985. No, I am of course about to embark on a review of the new Tom Hardy & Tom Hardy story of the Krays. One of the greatest double acts since Romeo and Juliette, Laurel and Hardy or Noddy and Big Ears. Ronnie and Reggie Kray, for those of you who were sick they day they taught ‘east end gangsters’ at school, did for clean living and upholding the law what Bernard Mathews did for promoting vegetarianism. During the sixties they were the ground zero for organised crime in London. Their presence was felt everywhere and such was their appeal that it wasn’t uncommon for celebrities of the day to frequent their clubs and casinos. They were an unstoppable force that quite simply ran an empire from the east end of London. They were courted by the American mafia, they crushed anyone that stood in their way and didn’t suffer fools gladly.

There have been films and countless documentaries about the Krays before, dramatising their rise to power and how they ruled with an iron fist but this is the first that I am aware of that tells the story from the point of view of Reggie Krays wife, Frances.  This gives a unique slant and stops it becoming a formulaic action film wrapped around a great story. It also helps show what Frances had to endure and go through and ultimately forced her to make some choices that were undoable.   

So, as always I shall start at the beginning. Legend is a film that, if you’ll pardon the pun, doesn’t pull any punches. It’s extremely violent when it needs to be and should not be viewed by those of a nervous disposition. One of the ‘confrontations’ that takes place during the film starts with Reggie stood next to a bar with about half a dozen men in front of him and then Reggie announcing to the world ‘a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a pub’. Then Ronnie walks in behind these six and pulls out two claw hammers and chaos ensues. Afterwards Ronnie and Reggie walk out of the pub. The other men involved in the fight do not. That pretty much sets the tone for the entire film. Don’t get me wrong, Legend is not what I would call gratuitous. I wouldn’t need that much convincing that everything that’s portrayed on screen actually happened. Ronnie and Reggie were ‘mommies little monsters’ and as a pair they were inseparable. Even when Reggie has to serve time at her majesties pleasure, his spirit and will is never broken. He believes that he will always overcome and triumph over anything put in front of him. And when his brother is making decisions that have consequences and impact on people they care about, his faith in his twin, at least in public, is unshakable. That said they do fight each other during the film and after what has to go down as one of the finest pieces of cgi that you’ll never notice, it ends with the realisation that despite each of their own flaws, they will always need each other to survive. 

When Tom Hardy was first approached to make this film it was originally to only play Reggie Kray, or Ronnie Kray, depending on which online source you’re prepared to believe. The long and the short of it is that the director, Brian Helgeland, apparently had someone else in mind to play the other twin. Who it was has never made the light of day but if I was a betting man I’d have a fiver on Tom Hiddleston, Damien Lewis or if you prefer your longshots, Helen Mirren.

Now, in what will go down in history as either a very brave or very unwise decision, Mr Hardy agreed to make Legend on the proviso that he played both brothers. Brian Helgeland isn’t exactly a man without a pedigree when it comes to movies. His screenplay CV includes such gems as LA Confidential, Mystic River and Man on Fire and although his directorial back catalogue isn’t quite as extensive, it does include the Heath Ledger film A Knights Tale and 2014’s bio pic about the baseball player Jackie Robinson, 42 to name but two. Having one actor play both roles would completely change the way the way was shot and easily add a couple of million onto the post production budget but Helgeland agreed. How Tom Hardy convinced him that he could pull both performances off is somewhat of a mystery. Again, depending on who you’re willing to believe, there was either a meeting that involved several bottles of scotch and a trip through the finer parts of Bethnal Green and Shoreditch, with Mr Helgeland in tow or an audition where Tom sat in a chair in the middle of an empty studio, played both parts and was ‘chilling’ as he spoke to himself. 

The latter I have absolutely no problem believing at all. Tom is very good at playing Reggie but it’s as Ronnie where he excels. For me it’s in his eyes where most of the character comes from. At times they look dead, as if there’s nothing there behind them and whatever vestiges of a soul that were once contained there have long since departed. Tom also has an unnerving ability to actually look like a completely different person playing each brother. Yes, he wears glasses and dentures for Ronnie and his hair is styled differently but whereas when Clarke Kent removes his glasses he instantly becomes recognisable as Superman, when Ronnie removes his glasses he still looks like Ronnie, not Reggie. I found the difference between Tom’s portrayal of Ronnie and Reggie remarkable at times and there were moments when I completely forget that it was one person playing both parts.  

Legend isn’t prefect perfect but I’d have to give it full marks for effort. It’s quite clear from what you see on screen, or more importantly, what you don’t see on screen that a lot of time and effort has gone into making London look like its back in the 60’s. Again it’s the computer generated images that you don’t realise you’re seeing that help there. That coupled with a great supporting cast that includes Emily Browning, an under used Christopher Eccleston, Duffy, David Thewlis, Chaz Palminteri and a blink and you’ll miss it appearance from Paul Bettany makes Legend one of the best British films to come along in a while. For the most part the narration for the film comes from Emily Browning’s, Frances and as I mentioned earlier, having the story told from her point of view makes Legend a very compelling and ultimately poignant film. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea or particular brand of vodka but if you do get the chance to watch it I would recommend you do so. Also just a quick aside here, if you have a look at the poster above, pay close attention to the Guardian review and where it’s been placed. They only gave it two stars…

Twitter Review:

Loyalty to my brother is how I measure myself.

#ICameHereForAProperShootout

Useful links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3569230/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey7S4hko_Mc

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=139205