If it's the goal of great science fiction to boldly go where no man has gone before, an entry-level problem for The Martian is that it seems to be planting its space boots in some recently trodden turf. For Matt Damon, the whole movie is another lost-in-space pick-up attempt, after his similar part in Interstellar. For Ridley Scott, it's another disaster-strewn voyage into the cosmos, after his own return to the genre with Prometheus.The difference from both of those movies is ambition (lower) and tone (much lighter). Adapting the self-published novel by Andy Weir, Scott and his screenwriter, Lost and Cabin in the Woods scribe Drew Goddard, get the premise speedily up and running: a manned mission to Mars, with six astronauts tasked with bringing back samples, is thrown into disarray when heavy weather blows in.One of their number, botanist Mark Watney (Damon), is hit by flying debris and thrown out of sight - his communications and life signs go dead - and the other five have no choice but to abort their mission and head back to Earth."I'm not dead," the injured Mark reports on regaining consciousness, in a first recorded missive which he has no means to convey to Nasa. "Obviously."The Martian touches on the melancholy of Mark's predicament, stuck on the Red Planet and having to figure out a survival plan that involves planting potatoes and using poo for fertiliser. But Scott and Goddard mainly want to be funny.Funny this one duly is, thanks in large part to Damon's ruefully engaging solo showmanship. Ironically, given that Mark's sending all his messages into a void, communication is Damon's genius. And he's great at fatigue, and holding back emotion when there's practical MacGyvering to be done, which is for months on end.Back on Earth, Nasa finally detect signs of life, and rig up a makeshift way to message Mark. Organising his safe return, though, is an epic business: it involves Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, hexadecimal coding, Kristen Wiig, "classified booster technology", Sean Bean, the Chinese, a reference to Tolkien's council of Elrond, rising star Donald Glover , Mackenzie Davis, and a year of planning, sardonic banter and intense bursts of Goddard geek talk.It takes a loooong time to cobble any semblance of a plan together - stretching the film's sturdy but basic bring-him-home plot over the two-hour mark, and debatably outstaying its welcome in a worryingly low-urgency middle third.But when Damon patches up a cracked helmet with gaffer tape, or jerry-rigs his solution to heating problems, or even runs out of ketchup, you can sense Scott loving the intersection between hi-tech and low-brow: as Mark says in what is practically a mission statement: "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this." 'The Martian' opens in cinemas todayWhat others saysIts biggest accomplishment is that it takes near-future space exploration and makes it look achievable with the right amount of work and creative thinking. Bryan Bishop, theverge.comA story about survival and a rescue mission, and also a salute to Nasa and the sense of kinship that science inspires. Deepanjana Pal, firstpost.comYou won't find a space epic that is more fun to geek out at. Peter Travers, rollingstone.comAlso openingHOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2Feels like Looney Tunes with the edges sanded down. Jesse Hassenger, avclub.comSTRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTONAn entertaining hip-hop biopic that raps truths about race and police brutality.Peter Travers, rollingstone.comPAY THE GHOSTNicolas Cage investigates a supernatural abduction, but has no solution for the maggot-eaten zombie that is his undead career. Kyle Smith, nypost.com..