I loved the book and as is most of the time the case it is tough not to compare the two. That is why I think a film gets a much fairer shake if you have not read the source material. The movie is very good though. It moves at a good pace and has just enough geeky-science to be interesting without getting bogged down. It’s a fun and slick survival adventure of astronaut Mark Watney who is stranded on Mars and needs to survive on a planet that has no atmosphere, water or food. The Martian really works because it is fairly realistic. Everything that Watney or his partners at NASA do seems reasonable, calculated and possible. This made for smart entertainment for the whole family.