'Project Hail Mary': A Rocky, Rewarding Ride
- August Hammel
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Throw a movie star into space and you probably have a hit on your hands. This simple studio recipe worked across a three-year stretch with Sandra Bullock for Gravity, Matthew McConaughey for Interstellar and Matt Damon for The Martian before it burned up on reentry for Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt’s Passengers, as foretold by our great prophetess Adele. Now, Amazon MGM Studios and Ryan Gosling are taking another pass at the rocket-launch-as-star-vehicle with Project Hail Mary, a galactic-budget adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir’s best-selling 2021 novel of the same name. Unlike Gosling’s initial trip to space in Damien Chazelle’s First Man, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller don’t take a more understated route of extraterrestrial immersion; Gosling’s second trip to the stars is seemingly lab-made to fit the bill.
Set in the not-too-distant future, Project Hail Mary tracks Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a molecular biologist-turned-grade school teacher, after he wakes aboard a spaceship with little memory of how he got there. Turns out, he was whisked away from his day job by European Space Agency administrator Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) to help solve a small end-of-the-world snafu: the sun is dying. Also, an infrared line between the sun and Venus has appeared. Grace is one of the only people in the world fit to solve the problem and gets sent off to a faraway solar system on a faint promise. On this project – Hail Mary – Grace finds out that we’re not alone in this universe, or in the fight to save it.
Longtime directing duo Lord and Miller haven’t directed a film together in over a decade, though not for a lack of trying. They were originally at the helm of 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story before that all went topsy-turvy and Ron Howard was hired to replace them. No matter; their learned experience of handling a film that gargantuan is evident in this spring blockbuster. The duo’s irreverent, wink-and-smirk stylings made the Jump Street, LEGO, and Spider-Verse franchises into satisfying smash hits. Yet, they had never brought a live-action project of this scale to fruition. Project Hail Mary’s quiet confidence comes from that decade of success and patience, though their appreciable need to prove something can occasionally prove tiring. This snag is easily handwaved away because they have a secret weapon: Ryan Gosling, a generational Movie Star giving a generational Movie Star performance.
Through a morass of science jargon and overeager set pieces, Gosling lights up the screen with enough wattage to power a nation. As the first talent attached to the film, operating as both producer and star, his passion for the project bursts off the screen much more distinctly than in his other recent mainstream turns in The Gray Man (2022) and The Fall Guy (2024). His pinpoint precise comedic timing and innate pathos flesh Grace out as a character beyond a relatable everyman on whom the audience can project their fears of disaster and the vacuum of space. The key to Grace is his blank canvas quality, on which Gosling gets to go wild and build a person from the ground up. But just as Lord and Miller have Gosling as a secret weapon, Gosling has one, too: Rocky.
To say too much about Rocky feels wrong, but blame the marketing department. Plus, this little guy is no spoiler; he’s the reason the story works at all. Dubbed “Rocky” for his rocklike formation, this alien creature communicates exclusively in chirps, but is more advanced than we could believe, and the puppeteering that brings him to life is a feat that must be seen to be believed. Neal Scanlan, creature effects industry legend, has delivered a remarkably charming feature creature, and actor-slash-puppeteer James Ortiz provides him a lovely voice, but it’s Gosling who sells the dynamic.
As a movie star, if you have chemistry with kids or with aliens, you’re set for life. It’s true of George Clooney in the former – look at ER – and it’s true of Harrison Ford – look at Star Wars. Lord and Miller’s crowning achievement of this film is allowing Gosling to work his magic and giving proper space for their relationship to grow. Gosling’s cocky yet flustered routine always hits, but throwing it into the fray with a Pixar-level huggable little guy is a genius move.
Their bond develops over the entire second act, a luxury rarely afforded to films of this scale. Whether that’s a testament to Weir’s novel, Drew Goddard’s script, Lord and Miller’s direction, or a mix of it all, there’s a refreshing quality to how much of the film foregrounds pure interaction. Yes, there’s a ticking apocalyptic clock, but when these two fill the screen, it’s their time to shine. The world-saving antics come about as a result of their understanding of each other, something that is not just gestured at and communicated through thoughtless montage as is de rigeur for most movies this large in budget and scope, but Gosling and Ortiz are given real, meaty scenes to chew on. As they build a real relationship beyond cutesy one-liners, Lord and Miller lock into gear.
That breathing room afforded to Grace and Rocky is unfortunately too liberally applied to the other half of the film. Intermittent flashbacks to pre-takeoff puncture the flow of the movie far too often, and it’s the movie’s Achilles heel. Hüller is totally game and The Bear's Lionel Boyce is charming as sidekick Carl, but there is far too much handwringing and incomprehensible space jargon in these sections, and one feels Lord and Miller focusing too hard on landing jokes to distract from this because they really do not have a handle on how to make it digestible. Weir’s approach to hard science-fiction is surely dense to adapt, but Goddard did it quite well in his previous adaptation of The Martian. Lord and Miller are no Ridley Scott, though, and the myriad science-first segments drag the film down into something far more forgettable and anonymously made, especially at its highest highs.
By the way, those highs are all with Grace and Rocky. For a $200 million sci-fi blockbuster, the movie is light on action. The spectacle is mostly found in its immaculate production design and visual splendor as Greig Fraser, coming right off the Dune films, lends the film a textured design that distinguishes it from blander studio fare, although the le epic meme T-shirts Gosling is forced to wear are unforgivable in 2026. However, all of this, thankfully, feels invisible in the service of these creatures from different worlds who learn to understand and save each other. Flimsy action sequences and bloated exposition can thus be forgiven.
Emotion-forward blockbusters aren’t uncommon, but to achieve studio glossiness from within the same framework that one gives agency to a pile of rocks is a real feat, maybe even landing a “Hail Mary” pass. For Lord and Miller to both acknowledge that Grace and Rocky’s understanding of one another is the core conceit that powers the whole film’s engine and for them to drive it home with a third act and ending as touching as they are is as inspiring as the more on-the-nose optimist sentiments the film espouses. It’s almost impressive enough to make you forgive the worst joke of the film: Hail Mary is, in fact, full of Grace.
Project Hail Mary opens on limited IMAX screens March 13 and opens everywhere March 20.
-August
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