Damon plays the abandoned astronaut in The Martian, a part that consists largely of direct address to a video log while solving practical problems. He also appears in The Odyssey. The survival performance works because he plays competence and humour rather than despair, so the audience worries on the character's behalf instead of watching him worry.
He came to prominence as a screenwriter as much as an actor, sharing an Academy Award for an original screenplay early in his career, and he has continued to write and produce alongside acting. That background informs his sense of what a scene is for, and he is unusually efficient at delivering exposition without flattening it.
Recurring subjects: self reliance, ordinary men in extraordinary technical situations, and humour as a survival mechanism. He plays intelligence casually rather than announcing it, and he is comfortable being an audience surrogate, which is why he is repeatedly cast in roles that explain a premise.
His survival lead drew an Academy Award nomination and is one of the most commercially successful hard science fiction films of its period. His broader career spans a major action franchise, prestige drama and a long producing partnership, and his screenwriting credit remains an unusual line on a leading actor's biography.
For viewers who want science fiction where the problem solving is the plot. Suited to readers of the source novel, and to anyone who values a lead who can hold a film alone.
Ridley Scott directs a tense, problem-solving science fiction survival tale adapted from Andy Weir. After an astronaut is stranded on Mars, he uses methodical science to diagnose and outwit each crisis, with Matt Damon keeping the tone sardonic, oddly cheerful, and stubbornly hopeful.
Epic fantasy action adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus fights his way back to Ithaca after Troy, and every choice costs something. Christopher Nolan shoots the entire film on IMAX 70 mm, in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and Western Sahara.