Spaceman movie review: Adam Sandler heads to space for therapy with a giant spider; result is a ginormous yawn

1.5/5

Spaceman movie story: Cosmonaut Jakub (Adam Sandler) is 6 months into his solo mission in space for a Czech organization, investigating something called the ‘Chopra Cloud’ that’s causing a purple glow in the sky back home on earth. He’s got to retrieve a ‘sample’ and then return home, but days before this big event, Jakub realizes that he’s got company on board the ship – a giant arachnid that’s the stuff of nightmares, with an interest in the ways of the ‘skinny human’ it is with.

Jakub and Hanus – as he eventually christens the spider – go from one being in mortal fear of the other to being friends and addressing Jakub’s relationship issues, given that he’s run off into space just when his wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) is expecting their child. Is redemption on Jakub’s horizon?

Spaceman review: Every now and then there comes along a film that has one wondering why it was greenlit and what prompted its star cast to go along this ride. Spaceman that’s streaming now on Netflix belongs to this category. It’s a yawn-inducing take on the astronaut with unresolved personal stuff trope that makes for a laborious watch, what with Paul Danos’ voice acting for a giant spider seeming like just what the doctor prescribed as a sound to help someone sleep. If I am being utterly honest, I did quite a few Mr Bean impressions to keep myself from catching a few winks while watching Spaceman.

But for a few dreamy memories that Adam Sandler as Jakub has about his time with his wife Lenka (Mulligan) and the fleeting glimpses of the space mission centre where Kunal Nayyar’s Peter is Jakub’s handler, pretty much all of the movie takes place aboard a spaceship that’s floating close to Jupiter. For reasons better known to Jakub, he’s always chosen the vastness of space over time with his wife, leaving her to deal with the tragic loss of an earlier pregnancy by herself, and now with the prospect of welcoming their first born alone again. She’s reached breaking point and wants to severe all ties with him, but the space mission won’t transmit her message because he’s already in a ‘fragile’ state, battling anxiety and insomnia.

Through his conversations with the giant spider Hanus, Jakub begins to understand the folly of his ways and the distance it has created between him and Lenka that goes far beyond the miles he’s gone away to. The trouble with all of this is that the narrative is so focused on Jakub that one never really gets to see much of Lenka or even begin to understand her or why she wants to end things with him. It’s a travesty to have an artiste of the calibre of Mulligan waste away in a role that does her no justice. Kunal Nayyar and Isabella Rossellini, as Jakub’s boss, don’t fare any better and the only reason one notices their presence is because of the impact of their earlier works.

Spaceman verdict: Spaceman is an Adam Sandler one-man show with no redeemable elements whatsoever to its credit. This is a mission that should have, perhaps, been aborted before take-off.