Spaceman Movie Review and Star Rating | 2024 Adam Sandler Netflix Film

Review: Spaceman continues the long collaboration between Adam Sandler and Netflix. It’s not my favorite of his movies with the studio, but it seems like Sandler is able to find a pocket within mid-range streaming films that I desperately wish a few more actors or directors would find. Paul Dano co-stars by voicing a furry, arachnid-like extraterrestrial.

adam sandler spaceman movie — Adam Sandler and Paul Dano in Spaceman (2024) for Netflix

Adam Sandler’s newest intergalactic melodrama movie Spaceman has a few shining moments and performances, but the overall package feels too one-note to land a real punch. There’s a noteworthy central idea buried underneath the rubble – a lone astronaut learning of his wife’s dissatisfaction of their marriage while he’s stuck thousands of miles out in space, and having to reconcile his own faults in their partnership – but the premise never takes off.

Instead, Spaceman resorts to scene after scene after scene (after scene) of Sandler and his extraterrestrial, arachnid-like friend Hanus (voiced by a single-pitched Paul Dano, who doesn’t necessarily snooze his way through the script, but certainly goes for an atmospheric delivery that drones on after a while) interrogating the meaning of life, love, and necessity of discovery.

Spaceman is based on a novel from 2017 titled Spaceman of Bohemia, and its pretty easy to tell early on that the material is better served as a novel than as a feature length film. The interstitial, heady dialogue and character motives can be better developed while mining through ones thoughts on a page, but as it gets delivered out in the open and on screen, it evaporates into thin air. The conversations are much more underserved than I imagine that living inside one’s head would be for the duration of the book.

With that said, there are still some commendable choices made along the way in Spaceman, like the under spoken and reserved performance from Adam Sandler as Jakub, which is great casting given the prior relationship the audience will have to him as an actor. He’s a veteran performer who is easy to root for, and the movie leans on your connection to his character and the belief that he’ll effectively right his wrongs by the end.

Carey Mulligan plays Jakub’s wife, Lenka, and is locked into the tone and delivery of Spaceman from her first time on screen. She’s the heartbeat of the film when it transitions back to life on Earth, and she’s not portrayed as the unlikeable, selfish wife that could very easily tank a movie like this. She’s immediately understood and thoughtful, and you take her character’s emotions sincerely.

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The look of the film is unusually gorgeous for a Netflix-produced science fiction drama. Spaceman often lives within the close quarters of Jakub’s spaceship, but when it either forces him out of his ship or into his own memories, the colors really pop and the density of outer space can be felt immensely. Towards the end of the film, Jakub and Hanus are forced out of the ship and the bright purple colors of the world around them are something beautiful to marvel at.

The movie certainly wears its influences proudly, those being the likes of Interstellar, Ad Astra, Arrival, etc. It’s not nearly as emotionally sound and resonant as the latter two, and the technical craft doesn’t come close to the first. It’s just a bit too slight and understated for my liking, but given the talent at hand and an ending that I’ll reward a few bonus points for, it’s not a complete dud.

Spaceman continues the long collaboration between Adam Sandler and Netflix. It’s not my favorite of his entries with the studio – the authentic, joyful sports drama Hustler and the strangely funny and ridiculous Leo fit in their lanes better than this does – but it seems like Sandler is able to find a pocket within mid-range streaming offerings that I desperately wish a few more actors or directors would find. More movies like Spaceman should be made, with an emphasis on quality, because it’s one of the few ways we find creatives with unique ideas and interests.

Rating

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction

Watch Spaceman (2024) on Netflix

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