There are two types of people in this world: those who would panic upon waking up alone on a spaceship several light years from their apartment with amnesia and caveman hair, and those who would immediately start making video diaries about it. Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace falls firmly into the second category, and the result is one of the most charmingly nerdy space adventures since Matt Damon decided to grow potatoes in his own waste.
Project Hail Mary represents a reunion that science fiction fans have been waiting eleven years for. Drew Goddard, who adapted Andy Weir’s The Martian into that surprisingly funny survival story, returns to adapt Weir’s third novel with the same spirit of MacGyver-esque problem solving and gallows humor.
Only this time, the stakes are slightly higher than one astronaut’s personal survival—the sun is literally dying, being devoured by tiny extraterrestrial bacteria called astrophage that feed on light to increase their velocity. Or as Grace explains to his students with the pedagogical enthusiasm of a middle-school science teacher who genuinely believes “toot to scoot” is helpful terminology, they consume light to move faster.
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, taking the wheel for their first live-action feature since that whole Star Wars debacle, prove they haven’t lost their touch for balancing spectacle with character. This is their fifth film as directors and their first that isn’t primarily comedic, yet it maintains the warmth and wit that made Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and the Jump Street films so rewatchable. They understand that space is cold and vast, but stories about people in space need to feel intimate.
Gosling operates in pure movie-star mode here, all fidgety charisma and goofy asides. Grace talks too much, admits he talks too much, and then keeps talking anyway, filling the silence of deep space with the nervous energy of a man who knows he’s humanity’s last hope but would really rather be grading papers. The film cleverly structures itself as a dual mystery: Grace must piece together his own identity through elliptical flashbacks while simultaneously solving the astrophage problem before Earth freezes into extinction.
Where The Martian had Matt Damon trading quips with NASA via satellite delay, Project Hail Mary isolates Grace completely. Messages to Earth take eleven years to arrive, forcing him into one-sided video diaries that become increasingly unhinged as the mission progresses. But Lord and Miller understand that isolation doesn’t have to mean loneliness, and around the halfway mark, they introduce Rocky—a stony, spider-like alien creature whose homeworld faces the same solar extinction as Earth.
The dynamic between Gosling and Rocky (brought to life through puppetry by James Ortiz and team) generates more genuine warmth than most romantic comedies manage with two fully human leads. Their partnership, formed across a language barrier that Arrival took two hours to overcome and this film resolves with a laptop and some scientific ingenuity, becomes the beating heart of the story.
You may find yourself tearing up at an alien with no face, which is either a testament to the craftsmanship or a sign that you shouldn’t watch this on an airplane.
At two and a half hours, the film occasionally tests the limits of its own charm, with Goddard’s script perhaps adapting too faithfully and delivering one ending too many. Not every joke lands, and sometimes you can feel Lord and Miller retreating to humor as their safe space when the existential dread becomes too heavy. But these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise an absolute space-smash—stupidly entertaining stuff about seriously clever speculative concepts.
The film understands that audiences don’t just want to see smart people solving problems; they want to see smart people solving problems while being likable enough that you’d grab a beer with them afterward. Gosling’s Grace fits that bill perfectly—the kind of teacher who makes astrophysics accessible while accidentally making himself the most important human being alive through sheer scientific competence and refusal to panic.
Hail Mary indeed.
Prepare for launch—catch Project Hail Mary in theaters and witness Ryan Gosling save the world with science, charm, and an alien best friend who rocks (literally).
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