nickharman1

As a 50 something advertising copywriter I laughed and squirmed at the ad agency scenes, all so very true sadly.We've all seen 20 something creatives talking crap and getting away with it because the elder bosses are running scared in a digital world.

However aside from that the whole thing was a bit of a mish mash with the writer often putting speeches in the characters' mouths when they didn't gel with the character. A strong show runner would have deleted much of the script and tightened up the rest.No one seems to have dared confront the writer on anything.

I watched it all, to see how Thom would get on, but it was an uphill struggle against show off scriptwriting, ideas that should have been left on the cutting room floor and characters that were all universally unlikeable.

Very old books, were old when I was a lad and that was 50 years ago. They seemed pretty awful then, but old Edgar, rather like Rudyard Kipling, was regarded as allowable reading for young teenage boys even if the women in the books were described in what was, when Edgar wrote the books rather 'racy' terms.

His heroes were 'decent chaps' who did the right thing by the funny natives. Allegory, doncha know. For him Mars was pretty much the last word in 'alien'. Not knowing any better he assumed we'd all be able to breathe there and would probably move there and set up camp by 1956.

The film is pretty faithful to the books' ethos and that's probably why it's not much good. Nicely filmed. Good for family viewing. Don't take teenagers over 14 though as they will walk out halfway through making gun gestures.

Teenage tastes have changed. I'm surprised the film's makers didn't know that. Ah well, whats a few hundred million dollars anyway? They'll make it back next time.