THE MARTIAN (Rated PG-13)

With the exception of a tense rescue mission, “The Martian,” a science-fiction adventure insofar as the main action takes place on a distant planet millions of miles and several years in travel distance from Planet Earth, is engaging mainly for the titular character’s solitary test of survival skills.

Similar in some respects to Tom Hanks’ being stranded on a deserted island in “Cast Away,” Matt Damon’s American astronaut Mark Watney finds himself inadvertently abandoned on Mars after his crewmates are forced into an emergency evacuation as the result of a devastating windstorm.

The sense of isolation, to say nothing of abandonment on the hostile turf of a distant planet, is inescapable when there are no means to communicate with NASA.

Even worse, Watney doesn’t have a volleyball named Wilson with which to have companionship and daily conversation.

“The Martian” begins with Watney as part of a six-member crew on the Mars mission Ares III, occurring at some point in the near future, which is conducting experiments and collecting soil samples.

As a botanist and mechanical engineer, Watney is a vital member of a mission being led by Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain), with an invaluable assist from pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), a military veteran who enjoys bantering with Watney.

The rapid approach of a major storm catches the crew off-guard, most of them wandering on the surface of Mars, causing Commander Lewis to issue a command for an emergency evacuation, which will leave behind valuable equipment and the modular base camp.

Watney, hit by flying metal debris, is separated from his crewmates and becomes lost. His failure to return to the spacecraft results in the inevitable conclusion that he has been killed, leaving Lewis with no choice but to abort the mission and make a hasty retreat back to Earth.

No one on the Ares III wanted to leave a man behind, but the stark reality of facing obliteration a few years removed from home could leave no other solution. They had no idea that Watney was not dead after all.

Maybe not dead, but he was seriously injured. But Watney is extremely resourceful, making his way back to the modular campsite, known as HAB, where he performs tricky medical self-help before assessing his dire situation.

Locating an old Pathfinder probe abandoned on Mars in 1997, Watney is able to jerry-rig a crude form of communication back to Earth, but his dilemma is how he will manage to survive for about the four years it would take NASA to send another mission to Mars.

Watney finds there is little in the way of diversions in the HAB quarters other than to watch reruns of “Happy Days” or “Welcome Back, Kotter” (I am not sure which), but even worse is having to listen to Commander Lewis’ collection of disco music.

Assessing his supply of rations, Watney calculates that he’ll soon starve to death. But his smart thinking as a botanist allows him to put together a potato farm, involving his own creation of manure, which will stretch his food supply.

Meanwhile back on Earth, Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), the Director of NASA, working with the best minds at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is leading an effort to not only find a quick solution but to avert a public relations disaster.

The Ares III mission turns into the media event of the century, and it falls to Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig), NASA’s media relations director, to extract information from preoccupied NASA personnel as she is charged with facing down a gallery of frenzied press starved for newsworthy tidbits.

Back on Mars, Watney demonstrates a self-deprecating sense of humor that serves him well as a coping device, enabling him to stave off hopelessness and keep his mind from fixating on the dire circumstances.

That Watney remains upbeat and optimistic in the face of the most difficult circumstances is vital to the story. His entries into a video log document his ordeal and serve as a testimony to his heroic endeavor to stay alive.

At its most basic, “The Martian” is a testament to the human spirit, though there are occasions of self-doubt and even despair for Watney, but somehow he manages, usually with some humor, to pull through.

Donald Glover’s eccentric JPL orbital dynamicist Rich Purnell concocts a theory to bring Watney back, which is validated by NASA’s director of the Mars mission, Dr. Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor).

The theory is a risky proposition, but it requires Watney’s crewmates, making their way back to Earth, to put their lives at risk for a rescue mission. Will Watney’s original crew be up for the daring challenge? The answer to that question results in the most spectacularly climactic and thrilling action sequence of this space odyssey.

One may find an urge to compare Matt Damon’s role in “The Martian” to that of Sandra Bullock also cast adrift in “Gravity.”

Both performances are riveting and compelling, but Damon has truly excelled in arguably his best role to date, and as a result, “The Martian” is smart and engaging.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.