The Martian: 8 Ways It Shows Hollywood How To Do Science Right

Often, a film of this kind will pull exactly zero punches when it comes to making you feel as though you're on a rollercoaster made of motorbikes, adrenaline and the American flag. I suspect a lot of this is rooted in the stereotype that Science Is Hard and there's an underlying paranoia that the audience will simply switch off unless you reward their attention with bangs and flashes.

Watching a space romp usually leaves you feeling as though a huge man in a pinstriped suit, smoking a cigar is repeatedly shaking you by the shoulders and shouting "ARE YOU EXCITED ENOUGH YET? IS THIS WHAT YOU KIDS WANT? HERE COMES ANOTHER EXPLOSION".

I think that the absence of this hyperactivity is probably one of the key reasons why The Martian feels like a science movie for grown ups. Yes, the last half an hour or so is nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat stuff, but without being gratuitous. The most absorbing part of the movie, at least for me, is the quiet, methodical way Watney builds his world around him; I was almost disappointed when he had to leave it all behind.

I know that the idea of a film is to tell a story and illicit an emotional response, but I generally tend to find the implication that my attention span is so limited that a plot has to be punctuated with emotional rollercoasters, boob shots and big explosions a little bit insulting and frankly kind of manipulative. Just tell the damn story.

In The Martian, the hero is the science and the human spirit and that's more than enough.