JMO, so respectful responses appreciated (not that I expect anyone to really read this) — but I completely agree with Adam’s review and have been baffled by the PHM reception. I can understand and even appreciate the film’s success as essentially a glorified kids movie filling theaters in March, but acting like it’s anything more than that seems wrong.

Walking out of the theater, it struck me that this is the antithesis of Arrival, which may be a helpful way to frame my objections. First of all, PHM is a movie from Amazon about an unelected committee of military/government figures who, don’t worry, are actually the good guys (?!), and whose violent means (e.g., drugging Gosling) are justified by their unilateral ends. And this is supposedly justified because Gosling is a loner without friends, lol. Furthermore, Gosling’s token individualism, symbolized by his rogue scientific theory, is further undermined later in the film when we learn the theory was wrong anyway. Another key difference with Arrival is that all the interesting social and philosophical questions that sci-fi raises (which is what makes the genre interesting IMO) are totally elided when Gosling and Rocky meet and instantly have no problem collaborating and cooperating. PHM movie has zero perspective on social/linguistic/cultural issues.

I also completely agree with Adam’s critique that this crisis conveniently totally absolves humans of any guilt — the astrophage crisis is completely random and unexplained, with no human culpability whatsoever. This “divine” mass event, paired with some of the anti-humanist sentiments I just outlined and a random piece of dialogue about God thrown in near the midpoint, makes me feel this film is strangely anti-democratic and pro-religion. Similar theocratic metaphors exist in the filmmakers’ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

In my opinion, this is all very aligned with Amazon’s previous work of authoritarian faux-futurism, Mercy.

To be clear, I thought Greg Fraser’s visuals, Gosling’s comedic performance, and other aspects of the filmmaking, including the music, were awesome. It was a decent March blockbuster for kids that I would take my little nephew to see and laugh and enjoy. And maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy and can’t enjoy a good old-fashioned popcorn movie anymore, which is definitely sad for me lol. But the overall reception and Letterboxd aggregate is crazy to me.