The Martian

Mark Watley (Matt Damon) is all alone. You understand why the rest of the crew leaves him behind. There is a horrible dust storm on Mars and he is separated from the group as he is hit by a piece of one of the rovers. He nearly does die, several of times in this film, the first of which is when a piece of the rover has struck him. Mark has to fix himself and then figure out how to survive on a planet with unstable conditions where he is dependent upon machines. If something happens to the oxygen compressor or water converter goes wrong, he dies. Luckily, Mark was the botanist on the voyager so he figures out how to grow potatoes (smothered in ketchup, of course) with his own human waste. He succeeds and it is a true miracle.
In the meantime, down on Earth, NASA president Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) has already announced his death and thrown him an elaborate funeral. It isn't until a fresh, young analyst notices something so simple and trivial that if she hadn't been told to look there, it would have gone completely unnoticed. Mindy (Mackenzie Davis) notices the position of the rover has been moved since the mission left Mars. Everyone is shocked to learn that he has survived, but they know that it is almost impossible that he will be able to return home. They know he doesn't have much food and that it will take roughly a year to get more supplies to him and four years, at least, for a mission to come and rescue him. They also keep his survival a secret from his fellow crew members so they can focus on their return mission. One of the mission controllers (Sean Bean) doesn't agree with that, and finally does tell the crew via video message.
Now, challenges continue to arise. Though Mark has one good crop of potatoes, the hatch is blow completely destroying his second crop and ruining the chance of further good crops. He must severely ration his food, but to his dismay, he runs out of ketchup and dosses his potatoes with Vicodin instead because no one is around to stop him. The first capsule carrying supplies blows up just after lift off because Sanders hurried through the routine tests so it would get to Mark sooner.
Fortunately, a young mathematian from California, Rich (Donald Glover) comes up with a better solution: the mission (Hermes) flies around the Earth, picking up more supplies and returning to get Mark before returning home. This means that they will be away from their families for five hundred more days than anticipated and two of the members have young children at home. Sanders instantly vetoes that idea, knowing that instead of having one dead person, the chances of having six increased vastly. Henderson (Bean) doesn't agree and in an attached photo to one of the crew members, Vogel (Aksel Hennie), with the coordinates and they gather together to discuss what going rogue would mean. Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), the leader, is all for rescuing Mark but all of the crew members must be in agreement. Now, here is one of my problems with the film, the crew agrees rather quickly that they will rescue Mark, screw the consequences. This could have and should have been a longer, more intense discussion, dealing with the ethics of both ways. Sure, Martinez (Michael Pena) insists that Mark would have done the same for him. He's probably right.
Now, Sanders gets behind what they are trying to do though with the strict warning that Henderson will be fired once this dangerous mission is complete.
And the dangers continue, with Mark figuring out how to get to the rescue spot, taking with him with water converter and oxygen filter and then getting into the other launch pad, already in place for the next mission. Lewis risks her own life to get but she manages to rescue him as the whole world on Earth watches.
Yes, this film has a happy ending, Watley returns to Earth, mentally unscathed from his time alone on the entire planet, spreading his wings and teaching the future of the space program.
Henderson was correct, sometimes one life does matter. Watley will make his life matter. Damon's performance is the glue that holds the film together. He is brilliant and even loses weight to show how the limited rations would affect Watley's body weight. He breaks down after losing his potato crops and is upset when he informs Lewis that if he doesn't make it, she will have to go and tell his parents that he died doing what he loved. But he doesn't die. It is also nice seeing Damon as a guy you can root for, unlike his character in the far weaker film, Interstellar.
His supporting cast, which also includes solid performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor as another NASA director and Kristin Wiig as a funny NASA spokeswoman, is also great though there is a lot of them, but realistically so, though none of them really have any sort of major personality. Still, there isn't a false note from any of them and  they do the zero gravity scenes superbly.
The set is fantastic, with all the details taken care of. The space shuttle is great, the costumes are real and even the scene where Mark staples his wound is so realistic you would think he was truly injured. Mars really looks like what Mars would look like. Everything is wonderful.
I did have some problems with film. Like the constant editing of the f-word blatantly out of the film so it could keep its PG 13 rating. They aren't fooling anyone and it would have been more realistic to just have the word in there. My other problem is the mild romance between the two minor characters, the remaining crew members: Beth Johannsen (Kate Mara) and Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan). I would have liked to see a little more of that, but it ends happily for them, though they can't focus on their new baby as the next mission is launching, but I won't hold it against them.
That being said, I wish events in this film could happen in real life, like the cooperation between the US and China just to save one person. I wish everyone would get together for something bigger than themselves.
Even if you aren't the biggest fan of space movies, this film is worth your time. It makes science look fascinating as you can do so much and solve so many problems with science and how your life depends on solving the problem before moving on to the next one. Grade: A-