Who’d have guessed that the same directing duo behind 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs could deliver a visual spectacle on this level? Maybe it didn’t seem too far out of reach, as they were originally hired to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story before Ron Howard replaced them. In adapting a hard science fiction novel written by Andy Weir, whose The Martian was turned into a film by the great Ridley Scott, Lord and Miller make the best case that they can that they’re up to the task. After all, if they were able to pull off a specific level of visual spectacle from their own work on the Spider-Verse films, surely one could hope that it translates to the medium of live-action.
For most of Project Hail Mary, we stick with Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), the sole survivor of a three-person crew on a spacecraft that is several light-years away from Earth. As a result of an induced coma, he has no memories of how he had entered this spacecraft – but over the course of the film, we see his memories coming back. As we start to understand the circumstances of his mysterious arrival, we learn that Earth is dying, as a result of the sun slowly dying out. With Grace’s own memories of his life on Earth coming back to him, he commits to his own mission to help save his home planet, even though he’s taking on a heavy burden all alone. Thankfully, he’s not totally alone, for he’s joined by a rock-bodied alien he dubs “Rocky” (John Ortiz). Most of the movie is spent with Ryan Gosling alone in space, but that’s hardly the worst way to spend two hours in a cinema – and Lord and Miller are making the most out of it.
Project Hail Mary feels unlike any of Lord and Miller’s past films in that it’s not a comedy. At the same time, it’s a far reach for the filmmaking duo, maybe because the concepts they’d been working with were innately silly. You’d wonder what they can add to adapting a novel where the fate of the universe is on the line, but even the evidently silly moments are a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. With a script written by Drew Goddard, who had adapted The Martian, it allows room for this optimism that humanity can move forward. It’s not a particularly original train of thought, but it’s helpful with bringing you closer towards Ryan Gosling’s performance, especially considering the film lives and dies by him. The duo makes a great case for Gosling’s acting abilities, given how much screen time he’s spending alone with a rock alien, for he’s also able to sell a friendship with this mysterious creature.
Not that I’ve ever doubted Lord and Miller’s ability to deliver a visual spectacle after the Spider-Verse films, but there’s no denying that Project Hail Mary is just visually stunning from beginning to end. It’d be one thing to highlight the incredible visual effects work on display, but Greig Frasier only continues to show himself as one of our generation’s greatest cinematographers. Every minute of the film that makes usage of the IMAX aspect ratio demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible: especially when the contrasts between 2.39:1 and 1.43:1 scenes help box us into what Ryland Grace is experiencing. It’s enough to give you a sense of the film’s massive scale.
Alas, it’s also where I find that Lord and Miller are getting ahead of themselves. With how much time they’re taking to set up Ryland Grace’s ordeal in the start of the film, it’s perhaps far too long, given the running time being a little over two and a half hours. At a certain point, it starts to feel bloated, and the odd structure never exactly helps that either. To an extent, one senses that it’s both feeding too little and too much information regarding Grace’s present ordeal in space. Too little in the sense that it’s rushing through why the stakes for this assignment are so high, but also too much as we get a clear picture why he’s become thrust into this position of becoming humanity’s saviour. This feeling extends into its final moments, which lead into a series of fake-out endings that even rival The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, yet without the same catharsis that Peter Jackson brought out with its final ending. It feels exhausting getting there, but even then, the final conclusion it comes to is rather nice.
There’s a lot about Project Hail Mary that simply works, and a lot that doesn’t. Nonetheless, I’m happy that a flawed, if ambitious blockbuster like this was made in the present landscape. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller broke out of their comfort zone in silly comedies to deliver a treatise about joining forces in order to guarantee a future for generations to come. In its sentimentality, you sense an earnestness to engage with what people need to do in order to survive, especially when there may be others out there in this vast universe undergoing a similar scenario. At the same time, you also feel its indulgences getting to you, even to a point where you’re made aware which other science fiction classics it’s clearly cribbing from, whether they be 2001: A Space Odyssey or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lord and Miller have never really shied away from this, especially given their work in the comedy genre. For a film like Project Hail Mary, it works in its favour.
Watch the trailer right here.
All images via Amazon MGM Studios.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Screenplay by Drew Goddard, from the novel by Andy Weir
Produced by Amy Pascal, Ryan Gosling, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Aditya Sood, Rachel O’Connor, Andy Weir
Starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce
Premiere Date: March 9, 2026
Running Time: 156 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 
Leave a comment