(Credit: AZ Family)
A pleasant, perfectly cromulent and cheery little film, which pinballs between ideas with something of a smooth grace (using "Lost" style flashbacks throughout, though these are welcome in the first half they become superfluous and perfunctory in the second, despite good performances and being useful on paper), buouyed by a lovable performance from Gosling. He's certainly a better performer than Matt Damon, even if his character is only marginally more interesting than the bowl of glue that was "The Martian's" Mark Wattney. When the film settles into (spoilers I guess) buddy cop shenanigans, it really finds its groove and is enjoyable, though some of the methodical stuff beforehand, whilst nothing we've not seen before, is competently executed. At its core the movie is about communication through boundaries, co-operation and working together to solve an existential environmental crises across boundary lines (side note: there's a beautiful episode of "Planetes" called "Boundary Lines" which I highly recommend). It really drags and slows in the final act, and the token woman (Milana Vayntrub is dead before the film begins and gets two, maybe three lines. What a waste), the incredibly talented Sandra Huller, (Holy shit is "Zone of Interest" incredible) is given the stereotype of a German ballbuster who does not understand human emotions and is entirely focused on results and science, not these petty human "feelings". It is a jarring experience in the year 2026, though from what I understand the character is given even less in the book, so once again it fall to Drew Goddard to pull somebody's nuts out of the fire. Weir still can't write a character to save his life, but the performances are still good, and it's a light hearted film.
