Project Hail Mary is one of the first ‘big’ films of 2026 that I have been looking forward to. This is based on the novel written by Andy Weir who wrote The Martian which is a film that I really liked and made me want to read the novel and that's not something that I normally do. It was clear from the trailer that Project Hail Mary was going to have a more comedic tone than The Martian.
The set up of the film is that Ryan Gosling plays Roland Grace who is a science teacher and is brought in to help try and stop the sun from dying out. As he says in the film he puts the not into astronaut. The story starts off with Grace waking up from hibernation not knowing who he is or how he got there and the film then jumps back in time to see him start off as a science teacher and future things out to effectively being thrown onto the space shuttle. The story after he wakes up sees him try and solve the problem alone because the two crew members he went with have died and he soon comes across as rock creature that is either a spider or a crab like thing and the two form an unlikely friendship.
The friendship between Grace and Rocky is the highlight of the film. I think the fact that Rocky is a physical prop and not some CGI creation helps make the friendship seem a lot more genuine. When Rocky left his pod to help save Grace’s life I did find myself saying ‘Dont Rocky’ which being a 42 year old man is not something I thought I would have expected to think but this is where I am right now. Given that Gosling spends about 80% of the film on his own, its quite an achievement that his performances are as good as they are. You can only do so much with a prop.
Another thing I like about this film is the humour. It might not be to everyone’s taste but I think that it was pitched just right. There is a scene where Grace and Rocky are testing out voices for the translation software and the different accents are quite funny. The humour is much more a part of the film than it was in The Martian but I think that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller walk the line of how much comedy to use perfectly. This shows how much better that Han Solo Star Wars film would have been had.
If I had one issue with the film it would be that the film is slightly too long. It is 156 minutes and could have lost 20-30 minutes. I think that this would have made the film even better because even in its current form, I really enjoyed this film. The flashback parts could have been trimmed down. We didn’t really need to spend so long just to see how Grace ended up in space considering we knew from the very beginning that he would end up in space. The upside to these flashbacks is that we get to see Sandra Huller who I first came across in Anatomy of a Fall and thought she was really great in that equally great film. Here she plays Eva who is the one who hires Grace and basically makes sure he ends up on the space shuttle.
I also must admit that I struggled with the whole thing about Venus and what was causing the sun to die out. I think the plot could have been simplified but like The Martian, this film has a lot of science that looks like its somewhat realistic but I think that the overall science fiction aspect to the main plot was a bit difficult to follow but that may have just been me.
Ryan Gosling doesn't get the appreciation he deserves and if you are not convinced by him after watching this film then nothing will convince you. This is a film with a lot of love and goodwill and with the world being the way it is right now, Project Hail Mary is the sort of film we need.
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