Okay, so I would have written this review even if The Martian hadn’t won anything at the Golden Globes, but it made for a more interesting title. I wasn’t able to watch The Martian in theaters. I don’t even remember a theater near me getting it, but maybe I just missed it. I had a friend who loved the book, he’s a biologist and while not a botanist, he was super excited by the whole farming on Mars aspect, but he had told me the main character was pretty funny so he hoped the movie would be funny. Now that being said the movie does have funny moments, Matt Damon as Mark is pretty good at bringing the humor, but I honestly don’t think this is a comedy. Sci-fi drama, sure, but a straight up comedy, I don’t think so.

Now with that out of the way, I did enjoy the movie. Watching Mark trying to survive on Mars and his chats with the cameras in the base are pretty great. The potato plants he starts growing are pretty ingenious and I really want to know if it can be done. When we send people to Mars, please someone do the potato thing. I also learned that Mars would be considered international waters outside of a base, which was pretty cool to know. I’m prepared for Mars pirates, because dude that would be so cool.

The movie is pretty long, so be prepared for a long sit, maybe grab some potatoes and ketchup, or Vicodin, no judgments if you are stranded and watching this movie I hear that’s a good combo. You’ll see what I mean once you watch the movie.  The movie itself is 2 hours and 24 minutes long, which is way longer than I expected. I made the terrible mistake of starting it at 2 am, so I was up super late watching it. I was super surprised by some of the actors who showed up in the movie. When we got to see the members of the crew for the first time I freaked out a little bit because Sebastian Stan and Michael Pena are both in the movie. I totally yelled Bucky. Sorry Sebastian, but it’s what I think every time I see your face. Pena had some great lines and I really enjoyed seeing him in another movie after loving his character in Ant-Man.

Jessica Chastain is great as the captain of the team and I would definitely follow her anywhere, even if it meant spending extra time in space. I really enjoyed watching the entire cast perform in this movie. Every character was really well done and even the actors I haven’t mentioned were a pleasure to watch. Two random things that I loved from this movie were the attempts to censor language in order to keep the PG-13 rating, hearing people tell Mark not to curse or reference what is obviously the F-word by saying eff made me chuckle every time, and the reference to The Lord of the Ringsthat happened because Sean Bean, who played Boromir in the movies, was the one who explained explained what it meant. It was just such a great nerdy little moment.

The Martian is a great film with some pretty funny moments, but if you are expecting to laugh out loud the entire time this might not be the movie for you.

Want to share your thoughts on The Martian with us? You can comment below or tweet at us, @thenerdygirlexp. You can also tweet at me, @kleffnotes, and find me on my blog, kleffnotes.wordpress.com, and on my YouTube channel.