Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction.
Rated 4.2 / 5 from 5 logs on Katalog
It’s both better and worse than I expected. The book has mostly faded from memory but I don’t remember Grace or Rocky being anywhere near as charming as they are here. Gosling as a comedian is at his best especially when he is also given moments to peek behind the curtain of the self deprecating, eternally-the-butt-of-the-joke clown and show the man underneath. He has a knack for portraying softer human emotions: fear, love, loneliness, doubt, and it’s really a good fit for a movie like this that’s basically one big “people are pretty great, actually” hit of optimism. Yeah, the apocalypse is coming, but it’s not our fault and in fact we’re doing insane acts of ingenuity to prevent it, and the mission headed by this Ultimate Stern Mother Figure who honestly makes me a little faint. Wouldn’t that be nice? Rocky, of course is the star of the show. How they managed to make the puppet he that emotive, but it’s crazy. I just—it felt a little rushed is all. I get that it was already 2.5hrs long but I’d honestly want it longer or shorter to develop the trip back. Make it part two idk.
Refreshing and funny
I mean, it's peak Hollywood "hopeslop". You know exactly what you're getting going into this and it's done as well as possible. Yes it's cliche, yes there's a cute marketable sidekick, yes it's too Hollywood, but it's all executed fantastically. Gosling is great in both comedic and dramatic beats (he's been an underrated comedic actor since #[movie:290250:The Nice Guys (2016)]), the movie looks great, the score is fantastic, and while it does run a bit too long and has one too many endings I forgive it for being a very faithful adaptation of the source material. It's a movie that just wants you to sit back in a cinema and have a great time, without turning off your brain too much. Walking out of theater three of us all separately had the same thought while watching it: this is "our" #[movie:601:E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)], and I think that kind of perfectly encapsulates it.
