Netflix recently released a film called Spaceman, starring Adam Sandler. It’s… interesting. The first time I watched it, I hated it. The second time I watched it, I hated it less. I can appreciate what the movie was trying to do, and Adam Sandler puts on a fine performance… most of the time. But there were just too many plot holes and too much meaningless rhetoric for me to really enjoy the story.

The movie is based on a 2017 novel, Spaceman of Bohemia by Czech author Jaroslav Kalfař. It begins with a Czech astronaut flying toward a mysterious, purple anomaly called the Chopra Cloud. The Cloud had appeared in the sky a few years previously, with no known reason.

Jakub’s job is to fly toward the Cloud and release a sensor that will tell Mission Control what it is made of. But he has been gone for some time. Parts of the ship are beginning to break down. However, neither Jakub nor mission control feel he’s in any danger and they continue as planned.

Earlier, Jakub was taking part in a press conference. He tries to appear in good spirits, but during the question-and-answer portion of the conference, a child asks him about being lonely. Despite his isolation on the ship, Jakub insists that he isn’t lonely because he has plenty of people to talk to, including his wife Lenka. However, Jakub doesn’t know that his wife has decided to leave him.

Why is no one afraid of the Chopra Cloud?

The first issue I had with the movie is that, while people are perplexed by the Cloud, no one seems afraid of it. This doesn’t make sense because the Cloud is already hovering between Saturn and Jupiter. So the looming question should be whether it will reach Earth. Even if it had stopped moving at some point, there’s always the possibility that it would head toward Earth again. Really, the Chopra Cloud should’ve been tied to the stakes of the film, but the scriptwriter, Colby Day, seems to treat it as more of a plot device.

This is a tricky subject because, to be fair, the main plot revolves around Jakub and his wife’s relationship. The Cloud is a part of the setting, an excuse to get our astronaut into space. Any excuse would’ve done the job. Most of the events in the script were bound to stay the same, no matter what the mission was. The writer just needed to make sure Jakub was alone on the ship at the start of the film. However, I’d argue that the Chopra Cloud should’ve represented more of a threat. Or, at least, the cast should’ve discussed it more. Its looming presence over Earth would’ve played into Jakub’s motives. If nothing else, the danger the Cloud represented would’ve given Jakub a better pretense to hide behind when a spider—yes, it is a hallucination—starts asking him why he left his wife to explore the stars.

This issue plagues the entire movie. The writer works hard to present the journey to the Chopra Cloud as a kind of exercise in human conceit (hubris). The Czechs spend more time talking about beating the South Koreans than they do discussing the Cloud itself. This is frankly unbelievable. There’s no doubt that people would have an ego investment in such an endeavor. But the Cloud might be dangerous and the cast’s fears would play into their motives.

And yet, the writer, working with a potential doomsday scenario, tries very hard to downplay the potential threat the Cloud represents. And he does so for a specific reason. He wants to paint Jakub as the real villain. In the eyes of the writer, Jakub’s loneliness is his own fault. He must through a redemption arch. But this doesn’t work because Jakub might be trying to protect humanity.

And the longer the potential threat of the Cloud — and Jakub’s role in possibly saving Earth — were ignored, the more frustrated I, as a viewer, felt when watching various members of the cast hurl accusations at him. It’s not that the cast couldn’t feel animosity toward Jakub; we’re talking about broken people—and a spider that may or may not even be real—acting emotionally. But somebody, somewhere, at some point, should’ve said something about the threat of the Cloud and Jakub’s potential heroism.

The best-case scenario would’ve been for Jakub to bring these points up himself, but he never does. And I couldn’t help but suspect that this possible defense was avoided intentionally because if Jakub had used his heroic mission to defend himself, the audience might’ve believed him, especially since they were probably considering this argument anyway. In short, people’s reaction to the Cloud added a degree of unbelievability to the script, which almost ruined the whole movie.

Jakub’s wife, Lenka, leaves him. She sends him a message telling him their relationship is over. However, the leader of the mission, Commissioner Tuma, refuses to give Jakub her message because she fears for his sanity, as she should. However, Jakub knows something is wrong because Lenka is refusing to take his calls. One of the first rules of marriage is that the silent treatment is a bad sign.

So here was the second problem with the film, and like the first, it contaminates the entire story. Lenka is very, very unlikable, and the situation is made even worse by the fact that she’s pregnant. Although her mother tells her that raising a child by herself is going to be very hard, and Tuma advises her to at least wait until Jakub returns before breaking things off, Lenka refuses to listen to them.

I want to stress that is not the actress’s fault. This is a writing issue, pure and simple. It’s made clear in the film that Lenka is not necessarily in the right, but she is supposed to be seen as a sympathetic character. However, there are only a handful of scenes where she acts friendly in any way. The viewer barely sees her smile, and more to the point, the viewer doesn’t see who she is before she decides to end things with her husband. In order for a story like this to work, it’s vital to understand Lenka’s position, even if the audience isn’t supposed to agree with her.

As Lenka continues to ignore Jakub, he becomes increasingly distressed. Things come to a head when his toilet breaks yet again, and as he goes to fix it, he finds a giant spider in his bathroom.

A giant spider? What happens next? Next Saturday!

Spaceman 2: Along came a spider and sat down… Well, maybe. The spider is an alien with a somewhat complex relationship to people and toilets. Adam Sandler gives a marvelous performance at a key point, but the script doesn’t give a specific moment that tells the audience what changed his mind.

Spaceman Review, Part 3: Inside the Chopra Cloud at last There has to be a gem inside this film somewhere because, despite all the problems, I still found myself rooting for Jakub and Lenka. In the end, I wanted Jakub and Lenka to restore their relationship. So, if you have a couple hours, give Spaceman a try. You just might find that gem.