Movie: Spaceman
Production Companies: Tango Entertainment, Free Association, Sinestra
Director: Johan Renck
Producers: Michael Parets, Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin, Peter Kiernan, Timothy Headington, Lia Buman, Max Silva
Scriptwriter: Colby Day
Main Cast: Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin, Isabella Rossellini, Paul Dano
Release Date: February 23rd 2024 (US)
Running Time: 107 minutes
Certificate: 15
Introduction
It’s been 24 hours and it’s difficult to work out what to feel about Adam Sandler’s latest film: Spaceman. While there are some poignant moments, it mostly just feels like a film student took acid whilst watching Interstellar and somehow mistook Matthew McConaughey for Adam Sandler. And yes this is an adaptation of a Czech book but still the point stands as despite Sandler and Dano having some decent chemistry the film will inevitably just drift aimlessly around Netflix. Oh and don’t worry just because it’s a drama it doesn’t mean Sandler isn’t dating out of his league, this time it’s star of Blink: Carey Mulligan. Anyway, let’s get into the review of the film now.
Synopsis
Spaceman, as mentioned above, is an adaptation of a Czech book and follows Jakub Prochazka (Sandler), a Czech astronaut, who is sent into space in order to find and collect mysterious space dust. However, doing this causes his earthly life to slowly disintegrate as he and his wife, Lenka (Mulligan), begin to drift further apart both literally and metaphorically. Jakub’s only company is his technician back on Earth, Peter (Nayyar). Oh and a talking spider, who Jakub names Hanus (Dano), from the beginning of the universe who becomes his therapist and friend the closer they get to the mysterious dust. During this, Hanus attempts to mend the bond between Jakub and Lenka as his mission begins to come to an end.
Analysis
Adam Sandler’s Performance in Spaceman
For as much as Sandler has been on a minor career renaissance recently, that does stall here as despite a pretty decent performance he just sort of sleepwalks through a lot of the film. A good example of this is the beginning of the film when he clearly stumbles through his lines. And yes, this could entirely be because he’s supposed to be groggy but it almost feels like Kunal Nayyar is having to coax a decent performance out of him.
However, for as lacklustre as his performance is initially by the time he comes into contact with Hanus his performance does pick up slightly. Here, you can see that Sandler and his interstellar spider therapist are gelling well especially in the finale when Jakub jumps out of the ship into the mysterious dust cloud to try and save Hanus. Here, Jakub finally accepts that he has to leave Hanus behind in order to move on to try and mend his relationship with Lenka before it’s too late. So while it’s not his best performance there are some things to love about his performance in Spaceman.
The Visuals in Spaceman
On the topic of the finale, Spaceman does have some very nice visuals which do make the film nice to look at least. This theme of nice visuals does ring true for a lot of the rest of the film as well mostly because of how it contrasts nicely. Whilst most of the film is very grey, yellow and blue the finale feels like something straight out of Interstellar before the acid kicks in. But ultimately no matter how hard Sandler and Dano work to generate emotion, it does feel a bit like style over substance.
This matter isn’t helped by the incredibly stylised way Hanus dies with him slowly disintegrating into light. Also, that fantasy scene where Jakub ends up back on Earth with Lenka is another example of the film trying to balance out the style over substance argument with visuals but ultimately failing not without lack of effort. Although, it did give flashbacks to After Earth with how it was shot which does unfortunately knock the film slightly.
Summary
To summarise Spaceman, this is a fine enough film which continues the plateau of Adam Sandler’s renaissance. If you want to watch a psychedelic space therapy session where the main character has to work out how to forgive himself for how he treats his partner and family but don’t want to watch a Christopher Nolan ffilm, then boy is this the film for you. Oh, and thanks to this film it confirms that Kunal Nayyar still isn’t that good an actor…
Overall Rating: 4.5/10 – Below Average
Target Audience: 15+
Content Warning: Mild Violence and Gore, Moderate Profanity, Mild Alcohol, Drugs and Smoking, Moderate Frightening and Intense Scenes
Recommendation: No
