Matt Damon’s “The Martian” screened on International Space Station

PanARMENIAN.Net - Critically acclaimed Ridley Scott science fiction thriller “The Martian” has been screened for astronauts on board the International Space Station, the Guardian reports.

Two occupants of the satellite, Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly, tweeted a photograph of themselves watching the movie on Sunday, September 20. Scott’s film stars Matt Damon as a stranded astronaut left for dead on Mars after a manned mission to the red planet goes wrong.

Scott’s film, based on a screenplay by The Cabin in the Woods’ Drew Goddard, debuted at the Toronto film festival earlier this month to positive reviews – it currently boasts a 97% “fresh” rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The Guardian’s Henry Barnes wrote: “The Martian, Scott’s adaptation of the bestselling book by Andy Weir, is a knockabout space adventure. A wide-eyed tribute to human ingenuity that packs enough snark to pull itself out of the black hole of earnestness, even if its fuel runs out partway through.”

The film’s plot sees Damon forced to try and stay alive for four years while he awaits rescue, in a pod designed for just one month of human habitation on Mars. Some experts have challenged the accuracy of the movie – despite US space agency NASA having been consulted by the film-makers – pointing out that human visitors to Mars would hop like lunar astronauts in Mars’ low gravity, rather than walking, and dismissing a storm which affects Damon’s character as unrealistic, due to the thin nature of the red planet’s atmosphere.

The Martian, also starring Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña and Chiwetel Ejiofor, hits UK cinemas on September 30 and arrives in the U.S. on 2 October.