Overview
- Critics say the Ryan Gosling space drama shifts from lone survival to a warm buddy story that plays best on big screens.
- Screenwriter Drew Goddard called adapting the faceless alien Rocky a screenwriting “nightmare” that became an artistic challenge.
- The filmmakers used puppetry and a voiced performance by James Ortiz to give Rocky presence and emotion without a human-like face.
- Scientists quoted by the Boston Globe criticized the astrophage setup as implausible but praised the film’s focus on problem‑solving and collaboration.
- Reviewers highlighted striking IMAX‑scale visuals and noted late pacing stumbles, while educators pointed to accurate touches like silent space, spacewalk physics, and rotational gravity.