This stuff really should be allowed to be funny because it inarguably is. Imagine Adam Sandler, big earnest eyes, drawn and haggard face from nearly 200 days in space, sitting down to converse with a massive spider. That, my friends, is funny.
Yet almost the whole movie is Jakub dourly remembering his life on earth — notably his wife, Lenka (Mulligan), who is down there on the planet pregnant and miserable and planning to leave him — in aphoristic realizations, helped along by his possibly-imaginary friend. Jakub has been a lousy husband, and the space spider, whom he dubs Hanus, helps him understand why. In short, this is a movie about a guy realizing he’s been terrible and vowing to change, thanks to a spider-therapist.
Furthermore, Jakub is up there with the space spider because a giant purple cloud has been in the sky above the earth for four years. Jakub has been sent on a mission to find out why — on a ship named for Jan Hus, the famous Czech theologian, reformer and martyr — by the Euro Space Program, headed up by Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini, who seems to be enjoying a vibrant career in weird movie bit parts lately). Jakub is Czech, as is Lenka — both Sandler and Mulligan try for lightly eastern European accents, with middling results — and has a troubled past thanks to his father’s politics. It’s unclear what year it is, but for some reason, the only other space program that’s rushing toward the purple cloud is from South Korea (the movie emphasizes the South part many times, for reasons I assume the studio knows better than I). None of this is explained and, indeed, seems to be beyond the point.
Perhaps this sounds fun-bad to you. It is not fun-bad. It is maudlin-bad, belabored-bad and also pretty boring-bad. If it’s fun-bad ruminations on troubled parentage and spider beings you’re after, please go see “Madame Web.” For me, the best part of watching it — other than getting the giggles when Hanus once again said “sssskinny human” in a clearly serious moment — was imagining how many people are going to click on it when it pops up on their Netflix page and wonder whether that doorjamb they’d accidentally knocked into yesterday had in fact given them a concussion.
“Spaceman” is neither particularly astute about human nature nor discernibly interested in the politics embedded in it, and it is not even meme-ably bad, which is a shame. So much wasted potential. With some room to breathe, to acknowledge the goofiness of its own premise, a layer of solemnity might have been dusted off without sacrificing heart and contemplation. A movie doesn’t have to be deadpan or serious to dip into the human condition. But “Spaceman” proves itself as inscrutable as a purple cloud in a sky, far beyond the reach of even the most thoughtful spider-therapist.
Spaceman
Rated R for some scary space stuff, language and a slaughtered pig. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
