Spaceman (2024)

March 1, 2024 4:46 AM

During a research mission, an astronaut discovers that his marriage is in trouble. Luckily, he has the help of a mysterious creature hidden in his ship.
posted by cozenedindigo (11 comments total)

This has been noted 1000 times before, but it remains weird that "Actually Does the Work" Adam Sandler is one of our better actors, while "Gets Paid to Make Gay Panic Jokes on Vacation" Adam Sandler is easily among our worst.

I hope this is one of his better ones, because I like that guy.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on March 1 [5 favorites]

I note that his "gay panic jokes on vacation" movies tend to have roles for his friends, who are never going to make a Punch Drunk Love or a Spaceman. So I suspect they are, in part anyway, done for their sake.
posted by Naberius at 3:01 PM on March 1 [1 favorite]

I always assumed he did those for the enormous stacks of cash.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:05 PM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Why not both? Easy money for you and your friends, and you get to travel somewhere nice and have someone else pay for it. I read a profile of Sandler some years ago and, assuming my memory is correct, he was basically scared of being bad if he tried to do really good work, so he was just doing the easiest thing all the time, because it continued to pay well. As an underachiever myself, I can't say that I wouldn't do the same thing.
posted by mrphancy at 3:54 PM on March 1

I watched the first minute of the trailer and as soon as it was evident that the other thing is a FUCKING CGI SPIDER I noped out of this as quickly as possible. No no no.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:31 PM on March 1

Spider: Nooo, come back! It's me, Paul Dano!
posted by emelenjr at 11:26 AM on March 2 [3 favorites]

Yeah, if giant space spiders ain't your thing, you might want to nope out of this one.

I just finished watching this and...It was good? It was terrible? I liked it? I think?

It was really good in parts, and breathtakingly bad in parts. I'll be curious to see what others think.
posted by slogger at 1:47 PM on March 2

Watched the first 7 minutes and turned it off, there was this immediate portentous, clumsy, melodramatic tone that just pissed me off to no end in the way that these NetflixCore movies seem to more often than not. The second the little girl asks a question on the Space Video Conference Call doing ethereal creepy-kid trope voice "hello...what is it like being the loneliest man in history?" I actually said "oh BROTHER" out loud and my eyes rolled so hard I gave myself a slight headache.

Sorry but just immediately seemed like a Dumb Person idea of a high concept sci-fi in the vein of films like Arrival, High Life, Annihilation, etc. Am I off on this or does it get better?
posted by windbox at 10:29 PM on March 2

I briefly hoped this would turn into a real sci-fi movie, but isn't. It's a relationship movie with a mediocre script that tries to be deep but isn't quite up to the task. But the spider was terrific. and I'm a sucker for ponderous solitary space voyage movies, so I'm satisfied. The ambiance reminded me of The Fountain, which I love, though this lacked the same emotional depth.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:54 PM on March 2 [1 favorite]

I noped out once I realized that this was a therapy movie disguised as a space movie where Sandler and The Huge Empathetic Space Spider explore life, the universe, etc etc with identically hushed voices (which might be your thing! no judgement!)
.
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 11:28 AM on March 4

I actually liked it? It is a relationship therapy movie, not a sci-fi movie so if you’re not down for that then I could see how you wouldn’t like it. I thought Adam Sandler was pretty good and I will watch anything with Paul Dano. I’ve seen much much much worse on Netflix. I do feel a little dumb for wondering if the spider was real or not, when it very obviously is not, but I think the spider was cute (and I fucking hate spiders!).
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:21 AM on March 9