RIDLEY SCOTT'S “The Martian” is one of those rare science-fiction films that puts an emphasis on science, so its release date is awkward. Just when the film was due to come out, NASA announced that it had found water on the surface of Mars. This announcement is inconvenient because “The Martian” concerns an astronaut (Matt Damon) whose crew leaves him stranded on that very planet, and his first task is, yes, to replenish his water supplies. If only the film-makers had known a year ago what they know today, they could have simply armed him with a bucket. Still, Mr Damon’s character, Mark Watney, is resourceful. He improvises a hydrazene stove and a polythene greenhouse and, before you know it, water is dripping down the walls. It’s a heartening moment of triumph, and the film is quite radical in its celebration of scientific know-how: for once, the hero of a Hollywood blockbuster is not the person who can punch the hardest or drive the fastest, but the one who is clever enough to grow potatoes in compost made from his own excrement. However, Watney sorts out his water supply so easily that “The Martian” loses the sense of danger and despair that thrums through other recent lone-survivor thrillers, such as “127 Hours”, “Gravity” and “All Is Lost”. Instead, a drama about being stuck on a distant world threatens to be the feel-good film of the year.

“The Martian” is set in the near future. Watney is a botanist who is doing some research on Mars along with five other NASA astronauts—although what exactly a botanist would be doing on a desert planet is never explained. The trouble starts when a sandstorm forces the crew to abort their mission. As the astronauts race to their rocket, the battering ferocity of the storm brings back memories of Mr Scott’s nerve-racking work on “Alien”. And when a satellite dish snaps off its scaffolding and knocks Watney flying, the 3D is so effective that I ducked while I was watching.

After that, though, the film is nowhere near as intense. Believing Watney to be dead, the rest of the crew blasts off without him. But when he wakes up, he is amazingly sanguine about being left all alone in the high-tech dormitory that the team had been living in. Watney doesn’t blame his friends for abandoning him. He doesn’t blame cruel fate for condemning him to such unbearable isolation. Knowing that he has no hope of being rescued until NASA’s next Mars-bound craft touches down four years later, he cheerfully and confidently gets on with growing food, figuring out how to communicate with Earth, and souping-up his Mars buggy so that he can go for a drive.

The screenwriter, Drew Goddard, has lifted Watney’s never-say-die chirpiness from the film’s source novel, a bestseller written by Andy Weir, a first-time author. But in the novel, there is enough room to convey just how challenging and complicated each of the hero’s endeavours is. In the film, there isn’t. All Watney has to do is have an idea, and the job is completed one montage later. He might as well be redecorating his dining room in a TV make-over series.

This screwball speed and levity is in the scenes set on earth, too. Once NASA’s boss (Jeff Daniels) and his colleagues realise that Watney is still alive, they kick around rescue plans. But, again, things move too fast for “The Martian” to convey the near-impossibility of their undertaking. And there is certainly no time for the over-qualified supporting cast—Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean—to give their characters any depth. All we get is several snappy variations on the same scene: Benedict Wong’s jet-propulsion boffin says that it will take him six months to build a new type of rocket, and Mr Daniels replies that he has to do it in three.

With its instant results, its upbeat one-liners, and a soundtrack stuffed with 1970s pop hits, “The Martian” is an almost wholly optimistic film, which, given the bleak subject matter, makes it almost as surprising as NASA’s discovery of water on Mars, but nowhere near as thrilling. On one level, the fact-based problem-solving makes it a refreshing alternative to the aliens-and-rayguns scenarios of a typical futuristic blockbuster. But in its promise that the most towering obstacles can be overcome with a bit of ingenuity, co-operation and can-do spirit, it’s as bold and far-fetched as any science-fiction movie.

"The Martian" is in cinemas around the world from September 30th.