Not Only 'The Odyssey': 5 Movies Where Matt Damon Just Can't Return Home
Throughout his career, the actor has often played characters who have been cast by fate into the most incredible corners of the universe.
For over 30 years, Hollywood has spent vast sums trying to rescue Matt Damon from a desert on Mars, the carnage of Normandy, an icy planet, and the raging Mediterranean Sea.
With the release of The Odyssey, a three-hour film chronicling Damon's latest adventures on his journey to Ithaca, we look back at the beginning of his long separation from home.
1. 'The Martian', 2015
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
.jpg)
In The Martian, the most optimistic sci-fi movie about the future, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, an astronaut and botanist. After being accidentally left behind on Mars, he refuses to lose heart during his year-and-a-half-long stay on the Red Planet.
NASA devises a plan to rescue the stranded astronaut, who becomes the first space gardener in history.
Damon proves two important things in the heartwarming and uplifting movie: first, that surviving on Mars is possible, and second, that he can carry a film entirely on his own and hold the audience's attention.
2. 'Dogma', 1999
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%
The fallen angels Loki and Bartleby are stranded in Wisconsin, unable to return to Heaven. This fantasy adventure by Kevin Smith reunited Matt Damon and Ben Affleck following the success of Good Will Hunting.
While the actors' characters were driven by curiosity, military duty, or scientific zeal into new territories in other movies, the events of Dogma unfold by God's decree, as he has condemned Damon's character for disobedience.
Loki can return to Heaven only if he passes through a church archway and receives absolution for his sins.
3. 'Saving Private Ryan', 1998
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
.jpg)
The Normandy landings resembled hell on earth, yet the military command was primarily concerned with finding Private James Ryan, whose three brothers had been killed in the war.
In an effort to ease his family's grief and demonstrate compassion, Captain John Miller is tasked with leading a squad to find Ryan, the last surviving son.
The cost of bringing Matt Damon home goes beyond a massive Hollywood budget – it costs lives. The squad suffers casualties while fighting its way through German forces. This war epic marked the first film in which circumstances took Damon far from home.
4. 'Interstellar', 2014
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%
In this sci-fi drama, Matt Damon plays Dr. Mann, a scientist who has spent years in a cryosleep pod on an unknown planet. While waiting for a rescue mission, he sends false signals back to Earth, claiming the planet is habitable.
Although Damon's appearance in Interstellar is brief and unexpected, his portrayal of the desperate doctor arguably makes him the most malevolent of all prodigal sons.
He abandons the mission crew, violates safety protocols, and stops at nothing to avoid dying alone on that frozen planet.
5. 'Elysium', 2013
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 64%
In Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, the only setting is the dusty slums where Max Da Costa lives. Matt Damon plays a blue-collar worker whose fate is illness and imminent death on a ruined Earth.
The poor are barred from Elysium, a space station where people have the chance for long, happy, dignified lives.
In Elysium, the search for a home takes on a much broader meaning. Having never had a home himself, Max is driven by his yearning for a better life to don a mechanical exoskeleton, battle droids, and infiltrate the station's medical bays to heal the sick.
