Film Reviews

March 20, 2026

With such an immense visual, aural, and narrative scope, and a plot about the end of life on planet Earth as we know it, it's remarkable that "Project Hail Mary" is still so soothing to watch. It's exciting, yes, but it's also wonderfully positive, mellow, and serene. Here is a movie that beckons us to stop, slow down, think, stay calm, and return to the basics of what bonds living creatures together—namely our shared mission to survive. It's magnificent yet gentle, otherworldly yet familiar, and hopeful and uplifting despite prophesying catastrophe. The way it balances all its thoughtful qualities and moving parts while remaining cohesive and accessible will be one of the many reasons we're likely to revisit this treasure of a film for years to come.

Ryan Gosling, confidently reminding us of his skills as an actor to sell any role he dives into, stars as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who adores his relatively unglamorous job despite also having a doctorate in molecular biology. When one of his students asks him to explain the mysterious "Petrova Line," named after the Russian scientist who discovered it, Grace gives her a safe, diplomatic answer, quietly adding that the sun "might" cool by a few degrees over the next 30 years. But Grace has taught his students too well, because this immediately incites his precocious pupils to fire off all the catastrophic effects this could spell.

Indeed, the planets are slowly freezing, thanks to a pesky alien microbe called astrophage, which attaches itself to stars, lowers their brightness, and then ultimately decreases their temperature. The Sun is no exception, and unless the people of Earth want to succumb to astrophage's nasty spread and disastrous consequences—the aforementioned Petrova Line is the infrared arc between the Sun and Venus after astrophage has consumed precious solar energy—they better do something about it, and fast.

That's where Grace comes in. He's recruited by United Nations representative Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), who's familiar with some of Grace's fringe scientific theories, informing him about NASA's "Project Hail Mary" mission, which she describes as humankind's last-ditch effort to prevent global cooling. Stratt doesn't beat around the bush: "Project Hail Mary" is a suicide endeavor, and her seeking Grace out is less a request and more of a demand. She needs him to join other scientists aboard the Hail Mary spacecraft, study astrophage, and see what makes the stubborn microorganism tick. More importantly, they need him to determine how it can be subdued. Stratt and her team may already have a lead based on the star Tau Ceti, which is nearly 12 light years away, because it's the only one of its kind not losing luminosity.

While Grace is intrigued and sympathetic, he's also scared and unwilling to go into outer space, pleading that he's not an astronaut, although his fellow crew members say such a title is mostly nominal and used for PR and photo ops purposes. Things get ugly when Grace tries to finagle his way out of bearing his enormous responsibility, even making desperate cries to his trusted security friend Carl (Lionel Boyce), but to no avail.

One of the pleasures of "Project Hail Mary" is that directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who previously partnered on "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "21 Jump Street," and episodes of "Brookly Nine-Nine," all which speak to their collective talents, make it feel interactive. As viewers, we're challenged to try to keep up with Grace's discoveries and learn alongside him, and the movie adds zest to the science fiction genre by telling the story non-linearly. Drew Goddard's screenplay is faithful to Andy Weir's wildly popular source novel in this regard, and the result is sort of a cross between "Memento" and "The Bourne Identity." When the movie opens, Grace wakes up from a coma aboard the Hail Mary, not remembering how, when, or why he got here. He must recall his own life and slowly make sense of his current—and often nerve-wracking—situation.

The heart of the film begins to take shape after Grace acclimates to his new home, and the Hail Mary encounters and docks with another ship. Aboard this vessel is an engineer not unlike Grace in terms of scientific knowledge, although "he" is not of the human variety. He's an alien from the planet Erid, and what's refreshing is that Grace's initial fear and anxiety about this foreign being are short-lived, which is another way "Project Hail Mary" doesn't get bogged down in conventions.

A dog-sized creature, Grace names his new companion Rocky because he's composed of, well, rocks, and has five appendages on which he has three triangular digits. Moving around like a spider and using sonar and echolocation to communicate (Grave eventually concocts a nifty translation device to interpret Rocky's pseudo-musical speech), Rocky (voice of James Ortiz) becomes one of the movie's most original creations, and a marvel of special effects, and he and Grace strike up a collaboration and rapport that is charmingly natural and moving.

It's been a while since we've enjoyed a friendship so organic and endearing as Grace and Rocky's. Their tender exchanges, interactions, and willingness to sacrifice for each other genuinely pull on our heartstrings, and it's Lord and Miller's capturing of simple things such as one character sitting beside the other and distant hand gestures that give the movie such a deep and resounding emotional weight.

What's more is that Grace and Rocky's devotion toward each other seamlessly develops in parallel with the plot, with the stakes and implications of the duo's similar mission to vanquish astrophage remaining top of mind for each of their planets’ sakes. Editor Joel Negron gives equal measure to both aspects of the story without either feeling rushed or forced, and the film reminds us that it takes patience to see a narrative of this magnitude through properly. At just over two-and-a-half hours, "Project Hail Mary" feels just right in terms of length, which includes its unexpected twist ending that left me hoping the movie would just keep going.

The movie also looks and sounds exquisite. It's obvious that production designer Charles Wood and cinematographer Greig Fraser have taken cues, either consciously or subconsciously, from other space adventure films such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Alien," "Apollo 13," and "First Man" (also starring Gosling), as they should, because those films also rendered and felt incredible, and almost aggressively put viewers into the confined environments of its characters. With "Project Hail Mary," we get a wide, prevailing expanse of the daunting outer space frontier that Grace and Rocky finds themselves navigating, but also the close quarters and often mind-boggling interiors of the Hail Mary spacecraft, with all of its tiers, sections, compartments, chambers, gadgets, gizmos, screens, analytics devices, etc., which, collectively, convince us the movie is loyal to its own universe and ideas. Even if all the science was made up, and I don't believe it is, the lasting quality of "Project Hail Mary" is that it's been made with care and creativity, not to mention joy and camaraderie. We can't help but get swept up in its orbit.

"Project Hail Mary" almost seems destined to be a perennial classic. We can envision watching it yearly just to check in with ourselves and the planet, not to mention challenge ourselves to process all its ideas and to become reacquainted with Grace and Rocky. It's funny and interesting to think that because movies like "Project Hail Mary" captivate us so easily, we might think they were necessarily easy to pull off, but in reality they takes an enormous amount of time, skill, and energy on the filmmakers' part to deliver such a rich and fluid experience. We should feel fortunate they've invited us to take part and bask in their efforts.