FILM OF THE WEEK: Project Hail Mary - Reviewed by Roe McDermott

There’s something pre-assembled about Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s new space action dramedy Project Hail Mary, as though it has been built out of particularly well-loved parts of recent sci-fi and polished to a big-budget sheen. You can feel the lineage in almost every major beat: a lone man in space problem-solving his way through catastrophe, a dying Earth hinging on one improbable mission, an encounter with an alien that becomes less threat than companion. None of these beats are inherently bad. The familiarity is even part of the film's easy charm, but Project Hail Mary never quite shakes the sense that it is rearranging ideas we’ve already seen handled with more clarity or emotional weight elsewhere.

Ryan Gosling does a lot of heavy lifting as our reluctant hero Ryland Grace, a once brilliant academic who was ousted from his university job for his radical ideas and is now teaching grade school science. When a rogue alien substance threatens to catastrophically cool the sun’s rays, his old research is discovered and he’s shoved onto a spaceship with instructions to save the world.

Gosling’s skill for both comedy and drama shine here. He brings an easy, self-deprecating charm that keeps the film buoyant (even when it sags under its own length), and there’s a looseness to his performance that suits the material’s more playful instincts. The film's humour leans accessible through physical comedy, awkward dancing, a sidekick who comes across as cuter and less intimidating than Any Weir's original description in the book. All of this will land well with younger audiences and anyone who enjoys their sci-fi softened around the edges.

The problem is that the film asks Gosling to carry more than it gives him to work with. Grace is sketched in the broadest possible terms: a brilliant scientist, a reluctant hero, unattached to anyone or anything that might complicate his decision to go. Flashbacks show us how he ended up in space, but nothing of his life before then: no friends, family, hobbies, relationships, leaving him blank. “Who am I?” he obligatorily muses at one point while gazing out into the infinity of space. No idea, mate. The screenplay never tells us.

As a result, the idea of Grace returning home never acquires much emotional weight. Home is an abstraction, not a place or a set of relationships we can picture, and so the stakes feel oddly muted.

The science also sits in an uncomfortable middle ground. There’s a lot of it, delivered at length, but without the kind of grounding that might make it feel coherent or urgent. The film clearly wants to tap into the competence-porn appeal of watching a smart person think their way through impossible situations. But unlike The Martian, for example, the explanations don’t land cleanly enough to make that process genuinely engaging. Instead, it becomes a rhythm of set-up and resolution that feels padded rather than propulsive.

When an alien sidekick arrives, the film shifts again, this time into a buddy dynamic that’s fun and endearing. Rocky, a spiderlike creature with a cuddly sensibility, quickly becomes the emotional centre of the story. Grace and Rocky's communication, gradually translated into simplified phrases, leans heavily on cuteness, and there is a clear effort to make the relationship the film’s beating heart. And hey, I cried, so I can’t say it doesn’t work, despite those tears feeling pulled at times.

Director duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, the Spider-Verse franchise) bring with them the same tonal instincts that have defined their previous work: irreverence, high energy, endless quips, and a tendency to undercut grandeur with humour. There are flashes of a much darker film as Grace mourns his lost co-workers, and some utterly sublime earthbound human moments.

You cannot image how beautiful it is when government official and mission lead Sandra Hueller takes up a karaoke mic the night before take-off and sings a stunningly emotive version of Harry Styles’ ‘Sign Of The Times.’ It’s remarkable – but the film seems more willing to stay in the light than dark, quickly returning to quips and Tik-Tok alien dances (including a dab!) .

And that’s okay. Project Hail Mary is entertaining and enjoyable. It moves, amuses, looks impressive on a large screen, and has enough charm to carry you through its more repetitive stretches. But it is also long. And the longer it runs, the more its limitations become visible. The final act in particular keeps extending itself, and in doing so dilutes the emotional impact it has been working toward.

If the film had been trimmed and more tonally focused, it would landed stronger. As it goes on, one ends up thinking of other films that have already mastered the sci-fi motifs present: Arrival, Interstellar, The Martian, Gravity. Even Gosling has a stronger space film, in the criminally overlooked and underrated First Man.

What emerges in Project Hail Mary is a film that feels calibrated for broad appeal. It is bright, friendly, funny, and easy to watch (even easier still if it were 20 minutes shorter.) Families will find plenty to enjoy, as will kids, teens, and tweens with a fondness for science. That’s a gorgeous audience to please, and I hope it nudges lots of young viewers into a space obsession. For adults looking for something that will last through the ages, man’s search for meaning continues.

Directed by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller. Written by Drew Goddard, based on the novel by Andy Weir. Cinematography by Greig Fraser. Edited by Joel Negron. Music by Daniel Pemberton. Starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce. 156 mins

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