Slapdash Review: Spaceman

Hello, after watching the new Adam Sandler movie Spaceman I realized I have a lot of thoughts and feelings that I would like to share with you all. I haven’t written a traditional review for a new movie in a long while so this might be a little rough and short but I am for some reason compelled to discuss it so let’s go.

Okay so I really didn’t know much about it going in, I caught snippets of the trailer but never watched the whole thing. I just knew that Adam Sandler is in it and he is in space and that a talking spider that may or may not be a figment of his imagination appears in his spaceship and other things happen. And that is basically the gist of the movie.

Warning: I will now be going into full spoiler mode because there really isn’t a way to fully talk about it with getting into all of it so buckle up and continue reading if you have seen it or if you spoilers don’t bother you.

Alright so Adam Sandler is an astronaut who has been in space for 6 months and is approaching a very pretty purple cloud that has been in the sky for about 4 years (if my memory is correct, I saw this movie 5 hours ago). He seems a bit sad and lonely which mainly stems from the fact that he can’t get in touch with his pregnant wife (Carey Mulligan, I had no idea she was in this) who, unbeknownst to him, is planning on leaving him.

Kind of a basic setup but things get a bit out of the ordinary when Sandler starts to hear a voice which he soon discovers is from a giant spider who has somehow boarded his spaceship. Now of course there’s reason enough to believe that Sandler is beginning to lose it a bit and is hallucinating this alien spider, but the spider gives a lot of specific information about where he’s from and what that purple cloud that the ship is heading into is.

Now the main reason I wanted to write a little something about this movie is because of a central element in it that shouldn’t work as well as it does, and that’s the giant alien spider voiced by Paul Dano. It is bizarre and it takes a bit to get used to but once you accept the fact that this spider (who Sandler eventually names Hanus) is kind of cute than it becomes easier to take in. Also this spider basically serves as Sandler’s therapist throughout the movie as he’s trying to learn more about humans in general and starts picking apart Sandler’s relationship with his wife. The spider is oddly insightful and Dano is kind of the perfect choice to give voice to such a puzzling and yet wise creature.

Sandler and the Paul Dano spider share a lot of meaningful moments, one in which they straight up hug each other which might be one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. In an effort to not give everything away, I’ll just say that I really didn’t think I’d get emotional in a movie where Adam Sandler and a spider essentially become best friends but you know what crazier things have happened. Oddly enough their relationship is the strongest part of the movie and every time they cut back to Carey Mulligan on earth I just kept thinking “what’s that spider up to? Is he gonna fix Adam Sandler?”

I’m still wrapping my head around how this movie pulled off its central premise, this will haunt me for days, maybe even weeks. But honestly, I’m so glad Paul Dano spider exists, he is profound and honest and is probably an amalgamation of all of Sandler’s guilt, sadness and fear that has caused him to look inward and discover why he’s become this self-absorbed, lonely spaceman who honestly kind of sucks and has not been a good partner to Carey Mulligan. But in my heart, the Paul Dano spider is as real as you and me and will live on in this strange little movie that some people might watch on Netflix.

Anyways I should probably cut my time on this even though I could go on and on about that dang spider for days on end. Although I realize there are other important aspects of this movie I could discuss further like Adam Sandler’s decent performance and the fact that all of the characters (including Sandler and Mulligan) are from the Czech Republic. But if you’re gonna put a maybe real talking spider in a movie who has Paul Dano’s voice there isn’t going to be much else I want to talk about.

With all of those words being said, Spaceman is an unexpectedly endearing movie and I’m glad it exists.

*hi this is a note from the author, me, Sarah Lord. This is the first of maybe many ‘slapdash reviews,’ a concept I literally just came up with after watching this movie. The term ‘slapdash’ mainly refers to the fact that this isn’t the most well-polished or professional of reviews and I simply refuse to agonize over the editing process of it. My main goal with these which I’m just making up now is to write something about a new movie I’ve just watched if I feel compelled to do so and post it as quickly as I can. It might be long, it might be short, but I can guarantee that it might not be super thought out or coherent and I just want you to be prepared for that. Okay that’s it for now wow I can’t believe you actually read all of this that’s crazy okay bye