Starman – Review

As Earth governments blast the Voyager 2 probe into space during 1977 with a message of greetings, they did not expect what came next. As a ship in space listens to the recordings, it sends one of its own to our planet to learn about us. The United States promptly blasts it to shit, sending it to Wisconsin in flames. Too bad our planet didn’t plan for consequences of sending probes into space, and obviously react with violence first.

So, back to Wisconsin, and poor Jenny Hayden (Allen), who is grief stricken and mourning her husband, Scott (Bridges). She replays old videos, and drinks, the usual healthy habits of processing loss. The crashed ship comes with an alien inside of it, who mostly looks like a blue ball of light. Sweet! Easy to travel also, floating around like that.

Next, mostly, the alien winds up in the form of Scott, and Jenny takes her ballin’ ass 1977 Ford Mustang Cobra II on a road trip with the weird alien-dude since he needs to get to Arizona to escape the planet. The car is sweet. Everyone calls it a Mustang when it is clearly marked head to toe in Cobra. Whatever.

Starman is a pretty fun 80s-vibe Sci-Fi affair with a good aloof performance from Jeff Bridges and a classic Karen Allen role which allows her to grieve and grow in interesting ways. The film covers interesting topics, but for the most part the story is pretty simple. A strong script and dialogue pushes this into good territory.