Directed by Ridley Scott, Written by Drew Goddard, Out Now

Ridley Scott’s The Martian is a welcome return to form after a run that has been average at best. Scott has done away with the plodding pace and self-important tone of his most recent Exodus: Gods and Kings and instead has embraced a much more popcorn friendly and warm tone. It tells the story of a mission to Mars that goes wrong; after a rushed evacuation, one astronaut, Mark Watney, is left stranded presumed dead and must battle against one of the universe’s most hostile environments until NASA can save him. Much like Apollo 13, cutting between NASA and the astronauts plays to the movie’s favour.

Goddard’s screenplay is a great adaptation of Andy Weir’s source novel, thinning moments where necessary but remaining true to Weir’s spirit.  The dialogue is sparky, witty and very funny.  A recurring gag about disco music is funny at the best of times and just bizarre at others: if you’d have told me beforehand that I’d have had Abba’s Waterloo and Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff blasted at me through the Dolby Atmos system, I would have laughed you off. All I can say is that I think it’s the best those songs will probably ever sound. The Martian‘s knowing and self-depreciating humour comes to a brilliant head when Sean Bean has a discussion with other scientists about the council of Elrond.

Matt Damon seems very comfortable in the title role of Mark Watney.  Most of Damon’s lines are delivered directly to the lens, through the form of video logs; Damon is one of the only actors that could pull off the honest comedy the role requires.  Jeff Daniels is on stunning form as NASA chief, Teddy Sanders, who is stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare. The performances are, in general, very strong but some actors are perhaps a little wasted:  Kirsten Wiig suffers the most as NASA’s PR Guru, Annie.  Scott has mentioned in interviews that most of her scenes ended on the cutting room floor because she would improvise a devastatingly funny line that ground the scene to a halt.  Hopefully, she’ll get the chance to shine in the DVD extras. Kate Mara has an unnecessary love story tacked on in the final reel of the film. The Martian should be celebrated though, for casting Jessica Chastain as the captain of the Ares Crew.  She gives a muscular and measured performance and is one of the movie’s highlights.

It is great to see Scott roll up his sleeves and tell a streamlined and propulsive story.  He seems to have been reinvigorated by the project and I am now eagerly anticipating his second Prometheus film Alien: Paradise Lost.  Harry Gregson-Williams’ score is great and underpins the stark landscapes captured by Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography. The Martian’s scenes in space have a great weightless and soundless feel; Scott employed Framestore to do this because of their previous form capturing that environment so vividly with Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.

The Martian  is a brilliant ride.  A late edition to a somewhat lacklustre summer season for popcorn movies, it is well worth the watch for its rollercoaster thrills.

Everest tells the story of a 1996 attempt to summit the world’s tallest peak that went disastrously wrong.

Directed by Balthasar Kormákur, written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy, Out Now

It centres around two rival climbing companies, Adventure Consultants, lead by Jason Clarke’s Rob Hall and Mountain Madness, lead by Jake Gyllenhaall’s Scott Fischer.  As they battle to descend from the mountain’s peak, hampered by a brutal snowstorm.

Kormákur took his cast to the real mountains in Nepal, shot them extensively climbing the Alps and, when shooting in Pinewood Studios, chilled the sound stage to blast real snow at the actors.  This is all done in an attempt to increase the realism of the film and his hard work paid off visually.  The movie looks stunning.  Salvatore Totino’s photography makes the whites of the snow look menacing.  Whilst the movie’s photography is elegant, the rest of the movie leaves more than a little to be desired. Marianelli’s score is syrupy and is often distracting.  Although the performances are all very good and the actors commit to their roles, they aren’t given much to do.  Even though we spend a lot of time with them before they begin their ascent, we frustratingly don’t really learn more about or get under the skin of the characters: most of Hall’s clients can be identified as the journalist one, the one who coughs a lot, the brash Southern one, the older experienced one so when the mountain begins to pick them off, it isn’t as affecting as it ought to be.  If this movie is anything to believe, climbing Everest is something for men to do, women must sit at Base Camp or at home on radios and phones, panic and cry.  The real heroes of Everest, the Sherpas, are brushed aside as though they aren’t hugely important to keeping the business of the mountain ticking.

Everest deals very well with the commercialisation of the mountain and amateurs’ climbing of it but it feels as though Nicholson and Beaufoy devote too much time establishing and telling us how much of a threat Everest will pose rather than letting Kormákur show us.  The movie lacks the drive and suspense of similar survival stories like 127 Hours or the climbing docudrama Touching the Void, which is a shame.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is a sequel to the popular The Maze Runner film, which attracted lots of attention in 2014. Both movies are based on novels from The Maze Runner series written by James Dashner. Since the movies are considered to be dystopian science fiction thrillers, running, fighting and dramatic near-death experiences are nothing unusual on the screen when watching The Scorch Trials. Filming lasted from the 27^th of October, 2014 to the 27^th of January, 2015 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not surprisingly, The Scorch Trials proved to be a commercial success at the box office; it grossed $30.3m on its opening weekend, while up till now it earned $211m worldwide. However, was the movie that big of a deal and whether The Scorch Trials has something fresh to offer to viewers are questions that not everyone would answer with a “yes.”

Just like its prequel, The Scorch Runner casts the original team of Dylan O’ Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Ki Hong Lee and Patricia Clarkson. However, the new film is supported by several new characters portrayed by Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Jacob Lofland, Aidan Gillen and several others more. Once again, the true question of the plot is how a bunch of teenagers will survive the apocalypse and will be they able to do it at all. Throwing action into viewers faces right from the start The Scorch Trials pushes your levels of adrenaline very high early in the movie. The beginning of the sequel offers vague scenes that confirm the group was stuck in a maze indeed and, at the same time, reveals that currently they’re in some unknown industrial compound.

Besides the vastly superior zombielike mutants that were infected by the mysterious virus, Thomas and his friends now have another enemy. Even though they’ve been saved by the shady organisation called WCKD (pronounced WICKED) and its suspicious leader Jason (Aidan Gillen), the unfortunate group of teenagers soon realises that WCKD is not to be trusted. Turns out, Jason is actually keeping unconscious teenagers trying to find out more about the virus. Since our protagonists are somehow immune to it, it’s far too easy to conclude that they’re probably going to be Jason’s lab rats.

It’s fair to say that just like South Africa Android and iPhone casinos use promotions to win over players, The Scorch Trials uses constant boosts of adrenaline to keep audience stuck in front of the screen. There’s rarely a scene that doesn’t include a dramatic event and therefore one of the most honest ways to describe the film is: action packed!

Running again, Thomas, Newt, Minho, Teresa and Brenda find themselves among sand dunes and ruined buildings. Their hopes are, of course, to find a group of resistance fighters and possibly continue the fight along their side. Naturally, the whole film includes some fantastic narrow escapes as well as chases that might even make viewers to jump from their seats. Per usual, the end doesn’t really conclude things and paves the road for the third movie, which should be released in 2017.

So, is this a likeable movie? It depends. If you’re a fan of films whose plot is not too strong, but offers lots of action, then The Scorch Trials is definitely something you’ll enjoy. However, the lack of a well developed storyline and poor character growth can be a real turn-off to lovers of complexity. The sequel was certainly better than its predecessor and it’s excellent for watching it with friends. There are numerous scenes with torture and biological decay that makes The Scorch Trials a bad choice for easily disgusted film fans. However, if horror and adrenaline are your things, you should go for it without giving it a second thought.