User reviews

This is not a film for fans of Adam Sandler movies. I have seen every Sci-fi movie of note. This isn't really a science fiction movie, it just happens to take place in outer space. It seems cliche to say a film is dreamlike but there is no other way to describe Spaceman. Imagine watching an entire movie through a Kaleidoscope. Not just through the lens of said scope, but also the lens of childlike wonder.

This is a heavy film that asks a lot of the audience. Anyone who sticks with it the whole way will be rewarded with a nice story of friendship and hope. Spaceman drags at points, can feel a bit claustrophobic and is honestly hard to wrap your head around. All in all good job by everyone involved. Again at least semi-pro movie fans only. Operaman-O Bye Bye!

I'll say it countless times: Adam Sandler is a good actor, even a great one. When refocusing from raunchy buddy comedies with his usual crew of 90's comedian friends, he finds projects that he can truly and unequivocally blossom. With these projects becoming more prevalent for the legendary star, it only made sense to make the lateral move into sci-fi.

Spaceman is something else. Soft around the edges, chillingly isolated, and moody to an almost uncomfortable degree, this film has a peculiarity that I can't quite put my finger on. Spaceman Jakub grapples with hardships that are equal parts relatable yet unimaginable. It's clear that he has been on this mission an agonizingly long time - literally floating in an emotional limbo that is ironically heavy. Aside from the harsh void, there is an internal vortex of pain, loneliness, and aimlessness that is heavy on Jakub's heart away from his partner, Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Denis Villeneuve's film Enemy comes to mind when we meet a large space spider (which Jakub names Hanus) voiced by Paul Dano, an English-speaking extraterrestrial who guides Jakub through his psyche, painstakingly examining what Jakub is truly after.

The darkness is a mirror emotion of interpersonal turmoil that exists in the claustrophic tin can they inhabit would be more effective if it didn't feel like the weirdest therapy session you can think of. The effect that is desired of us feels almost forced. However, this is made up for by stellar performances by the main cast. Believability and authenticity are the main ingredients of this unusual space oddyssey. This, combined with visuals that are breathtakingly beautiful, culminate into a third act that firmly holds your heart in a moment that intersects the beauty and vastness of a universe yet to be fully embraced.

Spaceman is not as complicated of a movie as it wants you to believe. Complexity of emotions and the pressures of Jakub's world almost act as a smokescreen of feelings that at times feel artificial, but the strength of the drama and cresendo of internal exploration make up for this to create a film that reminds you of Adam Sandler's potential.

As far as entertaining sci-fi film goes, this one hits the nail on the head in many ways.

Adam Sandler coming out with another respectable performance since UncutGems, his appearance and mental health is something to be believed in the film.

The various camera/editing choices they decided to make emphasises the sense of uneasy-ness, something you can assume Sandler's character must feel during the film.

The connection between characters as well is one that may pull on heart strings. It certainly did for me!

However, this isn't by no means a blockbuster of a hit. Story wise it's not very original and reminded me of the films Ad Adstra and Interstellar. I'd also say the ending could have been cut shorter, but I suppose the alternative wouldn't have made much of a difference for a viewing.

Overall, it's a very dark, artistic sci-fi film, that often leaves you questioning what's real and what isn't.

We are all like a blink of an eye, very transient, yet our emotions are rare. This movie is a psychological thriller in which a man fights with his own guilt and how he overcomes it. However, the audience may have a hard time resonating with the title of the movie, "SPACEMAN". This movie fails to create the tension of a space travel movie and is heavy on dialogue. It may not cater to the whole mass, but it is a movie for those who have a hard time letting go of their thoughts, fears, or not addressing their emotions. Anyway, I am happy that I watched this movie and hope to rewatch it soon. Hazelnut.

I've seen this movie before; it's called Ad Astra. Ambitious, but emotionally absent(and inconsiderate, I guess) husband leaves perfect wife behind to go on vital space mission. In both movies, the man is plagued by memories of a deeply flawed father, leaving them emotionally scarred and unable to reciprocate their perfect wives' love.

While in Ad Astra, Brad Pitt's character discovers his shortcomings pieces at a time: though memory, experience, and various encounters - here, they forgo all nuance. We simply have a spider companion who directly and endlessly tells Adam Sandler what an ass he is to his wife. But both movies share one emotional theme: fathers suck and their sons are not much better. Relationships are all about men needing to open up more. This is not so bad by itself. But I've seen this in so many movies and TV shows by now it's starting to get tiresome. With all the fancy camera-work, heavy performances, and ambient music, this story still just beats you over the head with it's message without offering anything other than an overused cliché.

Other movies in the past have a truly more nuanced approach. Try Solaris(either version), for example. I appreciate the production of this film, really. It's just that this come off as a feminist fantasy rather than good science fiction.

I understand that a lot of people probably rated this low because they saw that it starred Adam Sandler and came into it expecting Happy Gilmore. I did not. I am a sci-fi enthusiast, and I cut my teeth on some of the great, old masterpieces of the '50s and '60s -- many of them by Czech authors, just like this one was! These novels and films were ones that modern audiences might see as "dry" these days, but they were hard-core sci-fi that packed an emotional punch while telling a story of speculative fiction -- a world that "advanced the timeline" from our own to see how the human psyche, human morality, human frailty, would cope with advances in technology. And that's exactly what we have here -- a Czech astronaut put in an extraordinary circumstance, even fantastical by the standards of our "real world." And yet, the actual story isn't fantastical at all -- it's a simple question of the human heart, and the meaning of life. In that way, it's not so different from a one-act, heavy-dialogue drama... but by framing it as a science fiction film, we can strip out any modern-day distractions and just focus on human nature in its purest form.

And maybe enjoy Paul Dano's absolutely riveting performance as a giant arachnid alien!

This is a must-see for any lover of "pure" sci-fi or "old-school" sci-fi. 8/10.

An abstract look at themes of love, loneliness, & the meaning of life. More of a character study than a big story but that makes it uniquely meaningful. It's very bizarre yet beautiful with stunning visuals & emotional dialogue.

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. An abstract look at themes of love, loneliness, & the meaning of life. More of a character study than a big story but that makes it uniquely meaningful. It's very bizarre yet beautiful with stunning visuals & emotional dialogue.

. .

. An abstract look at themes of love, loneliness, & the meaning of life. More of a character study than a big story but that makes it uniquely meaningful. It's very bizarre yet beautiful with stunning visuals & emotional dialogue.

No spoilers .... with Paul Dano involved, I couldn't help feeling this movie was influenced by Swiss Army Man. That's not a bad thing, however for Sci-Fi, it ventures into the meta-physical with an open-ended conclusion. Also, given Johan Renck's bio, you see influences of Tarkovsky's Solaris. Overall the movie is intriguing, but lacking scientific accuracy. That said, many people seem to have missed that CzechNet was using quantum entanglement to get around the limits of faster-than-light communications - something scientists have been working on - albeit without any success (you can entangle photons, you just can't measure their individual state without breaking their entanglement). Regardless, this was a respectable attempt to explain Jakub's real-time communications with Earth. Props to Adam Sandler for taking on this unlikely role and to Johan Renck for taking on this project after reading the the Jaroslav Kalfar's book and seeing his own life reflected in its main character. My favorite character was Isabela Rossellini's Commissioner Tuma because it's the first time I've ever seen my family name represented in any major production :)

Let's be honest, the theme of Spaceman has been done at least once before -- Steven Soderbergh's "Solaris" comes to mind. The macro-microcosm, the struggle of the masculine "outer" vs. Feminine "inner" or however you want to label it -- it's not new on film.

However, in the opinion of this reviewer, a lover of slow-burn cinema, transcendental and timeless themes of space, the Universe and our place in it, this movie has still managed to offer something original and breathe some soul into the otherwise rehashed theme.

Sandler pulls off the role easily and I found the set and the setting of the movie refreshing (I won't spoil it), let me just say... Chechoslovakia?

I don't _really_ understand people who say they love science fiction but who complain this was too slow, too stupid, too predictable and too... unrealistic (not suspending their disbelief). Science fiction is a very broad brush, and we haven't actually colonized even anything in the solar system, so let's dial back the arguing on what is feasible and possible and what is ridiculous.

The important thing this movie did for me is keep me thinking and feeling about the human condition, which is the holy grail of sci-fi in a way -- to get the reader or the viewer reach into the mysterious inner world through outer allegories, which often are about outer space or the extraterrestrial etc.

The fact this movie burns rather slowly is actually what did much of the trick for me. I am very tired of movies that think they have to have something happening all the time. The irony is that while things are happening, not much can be happening, if you know what I mean? And correspondingly when things slow down, through being affected by the \[slowly\] moving image, some kind of reaction between what I am thinking and what I am seeing, produces interesting form of entertainment for me.

Give "Spaceman" a chance, and it may reward you, depending on your mood and predisposition to slow cinema and a bit of the unexpected, if not entirely original.

I loved this movie, which I know by the simple fact that a day after I am still thinking about it and some feeling remains. This is more than I can say about a lot of other supposedly great stuff I watched and have all but forgotten about.

And then there is Hanusz... but Hanusz will introduce themselves.

2 out of 5 stars.

Spaceman is a bad science fiction drama film that puts Adam Sandler into another serious sci fi drama. Sadly, the film is very boring and slow. It is no Space Odyssey, or interstellar or the Abyss with some ideas from all of them.

Plot is dull. Adam Sandler is travelling through the far reaches of space to investigate a storm cloud. While he is being affected psychologically. Until he meets a spider like alien that helps him through it. While he remembers his past about his wife.

Script is dull. And direction is tedious and dry. There is not one exciting moment or something that will be worth talking about. Adam Sandler did his best. The film is not memorable.

The premise and execution of the film is what kept me engaged but the overarching story felt a little played out and predictable. I found the choice to keep the characters rooted in Czech origins an interesting one in light of the fact that none of them attempted any sort of accent. Knowing the director of "Chernobyl" was behind this film made that a little easier to accept but even in that masterpiece it took me a little while to accept the non-accurate accents of the characters that made way for some truly outstanding performances.

Sandler does just fine, but I did wonder at one point what another, more experienced dramatic actor could have done with the role. His voice, inflections and mannerisms are so recognizable that it took me out of the moment in a few instances. I will say you do feel his despair as his loneliness and self-doubt take hold and he questions his own sanity when encountering the spider. However as he goes through his own process of self-discovery, its hard to identify a real change of heart in the man on the screen. Perhaps with more epilogue that could have happened, more on the ending later.

The spider itself was a somewhat confusing and unsettling element to drive forward his own self-analysis but I grew to accept it and feel the bond there between Sandler and his companion (Paul Dano did a great job, I felt, with the voice acting). But we never got an explanation of how he got there, whether he was real or imagined, or why the character was what he was, chosen or otherwise. I'm ok with a little ambiguity there, but it seemed like a wasted opportunity to add some bite to the premise to draw people in more than it did.

As for the ending, I was just hoping for a more impactful moment or series of moments than the one we got. It reminded me of Kubrick's "2001" in some ways and "Interstellar" in some others and really felt like it was building toward something more profound but ultimately there was not much of a payoff or anything terribly unique about how it was landed at the end of the story. We can assume where the titular character's life goes next but only based on a a few minutes of visuals absent of any meaningful dialogue.

I think some people will really love this film for some pretty good sci-fi world-building and the realism it delivers in that vein. I also think some people will really love the message delivered so I would recommend it to people for a watch for them to draw their own conclusions. But for me, I won't likely watch it again as it didn't bring much new to the table in terms of filmmaking based on what else I've seen. I will say that the movie has stuck with me somewhat in the days since I saw it, something I really value in a film, but mostly because it left me wanting just a bit more.

In 1:47 minutes they have captured what half a year on a solo mission to deep space would feel like....mind numbingly boring. A cure for the hardcore insomniac. It tries, at something and fails miserably. It has earned a place in my five most boring movies I've ever watched. With a 40,000,000 budget I feel so many opportunities were lost. They could have fed the homeless, saved some whales or invaded a small island nation. All would have been money better spent.

If you decide to crack on here's what you can expect...slow motion, slow dialog, monitone deliveries, as much action as watching white noise.

This was not at all what I was expecting.

It's essentially a love story in the setting of a a space craft.

Sandler does a good job in a straight role.

I'm used to seeing him in-comedy roles

Carey Mulligan dips in and out as his Wife who has lost all faith in him.

The real star of the movie tough is Hanus played by Paul Dano.

At first I didn't think the character would work but by the end of the movie we fall in love him Hanus.

There are parts of the movie that I wish they hadn't included but it all works .

They could have set the story in any setting but the space craft was a nice touch .

The ending was a let down for me but they made their point .