Sent to Mars to explore and bring back samples, the American Ares 3 mission is caught by a huge storm and forced to flee the surface. Hit by debris, Mark Watney is left for dead, but he survives and finds himself alone on the Red Planet, in hostile conditions and with very limited resources. While NASA tries to find a way to get him back, Watney, a botanist and mechanical engineer, must use all his skills and his intelligence to survive.

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30 years after the influential Alien and Blade Runner, three years after the so-so Prometheus (and with a Blade Runner sequel in the works), Ridley Scott is back doing cool things in space. This is a typical big budget Hollywood movie hoping to be a sensation by going for strong emotions, powerful special effects, scientific jibber-jabber spiced with jokes, and 3D for everyone in the audience. Despite a simple, Gravity-type plot, too many secondary roles and chatty dialogue instead of a serious examination of the survival issue, Ridley Scott’s directing and an excellent cast make for a perfectly entertaining, gripping adventure, albeit one that’s off the assembly line.