March 28, 2026 – Ryan Gosling, embodying a Tom Hanks-style good guy vibe, gives a brilliant performance, along with a puppet, in a space opera that is short on science but long on humanity.

Gosling plays science teacher Ryland Grace, who is Shanghaied by desperate scientists trying to save life on earth. He is put into an induced coma against his will and wakes up on a spaceship in interstellar space far from earth. At first, he can't remember why he is there, but his memory gradually returns. He is there to solve a mystery which threatens all life on earth.

Grace is an expert on an interstellar organism called astrophage which is sucking the life out of the sun. The earth is cooling off and will gradually freeze unless he can find out how to stop the astrophage on a distant world he calls Adrian. Adrian and its sun, Tau Ceti are the only solar system in this part of the galaxy are unaffected by astrophage.

Grace is not the only spaceman headed for Adrian. An alien ship from 40 Eridani intercepts Grace's ship. It turns out the ship, run by a mechanic that Grace calls Rocky (the aforementioned puppet) because of his rock-like appearance, is on the same kind of mission that Grace is on — to find out how to stop the astrophage from destroying his world. Both Grace and Rocky are in the same boat, so to speak, because they are on their own after their respective crews have died on the trip to Adrian.

Grace and Rocky discover how to communicate with each other and decide to help each other solve the riddle of the the astrophage. They figure out a way to sample the atmosphere of Adrian, which may hold the secret they both need to discover to save their worlds.

The mission is very difficult and there are many dangers. Grace and Rocky both have to make very difficult decisions if they are going to complete their missions. Through it all Grace and Rocky become close friends, even though they cannot touch each other because the atmospheres they breathe are completely incompatible.

The science of this mission makes no sense, but the friendship between Grace and Rocky is a beautiful thing. Grace represents the best of humanity, and Rocky is equally admirable. Positive role models like these are much needed now, when some very bad people are causing so much pain, suffering and death in the world. I can see why this movie is so popular. It makes the audience proud to be human beings.

The pacing of the movie is pretty slow, but patience is rewarded by this movie's positive message. This movie rates a B.

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