Is there some unspoken rule about space movies that says Matt Damon has to be screwed over in every possible way? Recently, I had the pleasure of watching The Martian, a movie that came out in late 2015 and somehow slid past my radar. Initially, I was less than enthused at the idea of another movie with Matt Damon as the hook, line, and sinker. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong about a movie in my life.

For some context, I love space movies. The “last frontier” of space both terrifies and enraptures me, whether it is depicted in Lovecraftian horror, futuristic fiction, or even harsh reality. Being a huge fan of Star Wars and reading my fair share of Lovecraft, the thing that I crave most in the space genre now is something that captures that frighteningly-real element. For a long time, I thought Gravity was going to be the hottest thing since Venus, but The Martian just blew me away.

The Martian stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, an astronaut/botanist on an exhibition on Mars with his team. The group of six astronauts plan to stay there for roughly a month conducting all manners of tests and experiments, but a hellish storm arises which separates and presumably kills Watney, forcing the crew to leave him behind when they evacuate. When Watney awakes, he finds he’s injured and completely alone on the planet with no way to get home.

I mention only Damon’s name because he stole the whole show. The supporting actors were great and gave the movie the ability to move smoothly even when the focus was on Earth, but Damon deserves special recognition. He is an actor I have tried to dislike for years (an irrational dislike I can’t explain even now), but this movie was the last straw in my pile of denial. Whatever baseless prejudices I had against him are long gone now, because the two hours I spent watching his performance were nearly unforgettable.

Gravity and The Martian have one thing in common: isolation. Gravity, however, had two actors working together for a spectacular performance of two stranded astronauts who had to rely on each other and the grace of God to survive. Damon portrayed his part alone on Mars so well they could have cut every scene without him from the movie and I still would have paid to see it.

The movie uses legitimate science in a show of willpower as we follow the botanist in his attempts to survive. The dynamic of speaking to a recording almost reminds me of James Cameron’s Avatar, but to a greater and more powerful extent. Brilliantly switching between the station’s cameras and standard movie filming, the film could not have captured his solitude better than his conversations with himself and his recordings.

Something that viewers of space movies tend to be rightfully picky about are visuals, so is this a cheesy, unbelievable space flick? The answer is “no” a thousand times over. The movie is beautiful, and the environment so real and seamless I couldn’t tell what was a green screen and what was a set. The only thing I can relate it to would be Interstellar, yet another movie where Matt Damon got stranded in outer space. The visuals here are on par if not better than Interstellar’s, which were, well, stellar.

One thing I’m less sure of is Harry Gregson-Williams’ soundtrack for the movie. I’m a huge fan of his work, but in this movie, I can’t remember a single movie track. This could be taken two ways, either that the movie was so immersive and filled with excellent dialogue and tension that the music just wasn’t important…or that it was just a forgettable music score. Considering how impressed I was with this movie, I’d like to lean towards the first interpretation.

Finally, I have to point out that even Rotten Tomatoes gave The Martian a 93%. For the record, I hate Rotten Tomatoes because most of the time their ratings are inaccurate and come off as completely misinformed, but on rare occasion I’ve been known to agree with them, and I’m glad to see that this is one of those occasions. If that doesn’t convey how much I enjoyed this movie, then this will — I happily give The Martian 10 out of 10 stars because this movie was absolutely amazing. I’d recommend it to anyone with eyes and ears, because this is one adventure that is, without a doubt… out of this world.