Spaceman 2024 Movie Review
When Adam Sandler changes gears to work on a dramatic film, I’m always intrigued and willing to give it a chance. I’m not sure if he will ever top performances like he gave in Reign Over Me or Punch Drunk Love, but these days, I feel that his comedy has slipped away from him (in terms of feature films). Well, I stand by that last statement because Netflix has just released his latest dramatic effort in the film, Spaceman, and while I have my complaints, this is a good film with a solid performance at the forefront. It’s been a while since I’ve liked Sandler this much to be honest. If you’re into sci-fi, I recommend this one and here’s why.
The majority of the film takes place on a spaceship near the planet Jupiter. This backdrop ended up being slightly disappointing though because the film is really about the reflection of a love story between Jakub (Adam Sandler) and Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Being alone in space has him grieving the ending of their relationship in his way, but things switch gears when he is visited by a giant spider, voiced by Paul Dano. This aspect may seem bizarre and at first, I even thought it didn’t fit with the rest of the film, but it grew on me. The meaning of the spider is what made the movie what it is ultimately, so I liked it. My biggest complaint with this film in general though is the fact that the sci-fi elements are quite cerebral and engaging, so why didn’t they choose to explore that a little more? Those were easily my favourite moments of the film.
Sandler gives a surprisingly restrained performance here, never going over the top or trying too hard and never getting too sentimental either. I’m surprised they gave his character barely a line of humour and his few brief scenes with Milligan felt authentic. Director Johan Renck helms his very first feature film after working as a director for many years on television and music videos. He cut his teeth on shows like Breaking Bad and Chernobyl, so it’s no surprise that this was also well-directed. Some viewers may find his choice of pacing a tad slow, but I was sucked in by it. I truly feel that the lack of exploration outside of the romance story did hurt my experience though.
Spaceman is a film that satisfied me in terms of the story it was choosing to tell, but I felt like so much more could’ve been explored, which I admit is a personal nitpick, but it stuck with me. There are a few metaphors I enjoyed as well and it’s all around a solid, solid movie, right down to the great score and pretty decent CGI. Scoring this one is odd for me, so due to my complaints, I’ll knock it down a few notches, but I still recommend it and think it’s really good for what it is. Now streaming on Netflix, there are far worse films out there than Spaceman. So again, I recommend this one.
