Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in Project Hail Mary.Jonathan Olley/Supplied
Project Hail Mary
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Written by Drew Goddard, based on the novel by Andy Weir
Starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller and James Ortiz
Classification PG; 156 minutes
Opens in theatres March 20
Critic’s Pick
There are a lot of “firsts” nestled inside the new science-fiction adventure Project Hail Mary: the first time an astronaut attempts interstellar space travel, the first time a human meets an alien, the first time that Ryan Gosling has ever rocked seriously Samson-length hair (it works!). But the film, impressively assembled and smoothly executed as it often is, can feel at times weighed down by a particularly outer-world sense of déjà vu. This is the second time that we’ve seen Gosling play a highly capable astronaut (after 2018’s First Man), the second time that Hollywood has adapted an Andy Weir novel about a lone spaceman trying to find his way back home against impossible odds (after Ridley Scott’s The Martian), and the second time that co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have injected their own particular brand of cutesy-absurd comedy into an outer-space thriller (after their aborted attempt to make the Han Solo spin-off).
At almost every turn, Project Hail Mary attempts to convince you that it is groundbreaking, innovative filmmaking. But in actuality, the movie lands as a grand act of cinematic recycling – the fusing together of familiar, comforting bits and pieces into something determined to please crowds and warm hearts.
Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily. Lord and Miller have such a deep and sincere affinity for the mechanics of a classic adventure flick that their enthusiasm is dang near contagious. And if you can’t get Matt Damon onboard, then Gosling is your absolute second-best choice. It is only that as Project Hail Mary barrels toward its emotionally predictable – if not exactly narratively expected – finale, you can see each and every gear of the film grinding and turning, locking the project into precise place. It goes, in other words, where plenty of men have gone before.
Sandra Huller, right, plays the leader of a coalition of scientists on Earth that sends Ryland on his mission to save the planet.Jonathan Olley/Supplied
The good news, again, is that the film – even at the 156-minute mark – moves so impressively fast that you won’t mind much of anything. Like Weir’s novel, the story opens with Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling) awakening on a spacecraft with no real memory of how he got there or why. Through flashbacks, both Ryland and the audience discover the reality, and the stakes, of his mission. To skip all the science jargon, it turns out that our sun might be dying, and the only way to save Earth is to travel to the Tau Ceti constellation many light years away, where Ryland, the world’s smartest man – or at least its most charismatic – has been sent by a coalition of Earth’s scientists (led by Sandra Huller) to discover a way to turn things around.
But, in one of the narrative’s many neat speed bumps – and one that might be considered a spoiler but has already been made the central hook of the movie’s marketing campaign – it turns out that Ryland isn’t the only one looking for a way to save his home planet. Not long after the good doctor wakes up, he encounters a bizarre alien craft carrying an adorable little extraterrestrial who he nicknames Rocky (due to the creature’s stone-like composition), and the two form a BFF bond.
Audiences familiar with the beats of any good survival thriller – to say nothing of The Martian’s one-problem-at-a-time screenplay by Drew Goddard, who also penned this adaptation – can guess where the story goes from there, which is mainly one troubleshooting scenario after another. And then there are the film’s two big hiding-in-plain sight problems: the way in which it handles (or rather, doesn’t) Ryland’s case of debilitating amnesia, and its fondness for one ending too many. (Just when you think it’s over, think again!) But Lord and Miller keep the momentum going at warp speed, ensuring that the flashback scenes (which are shot in traditional 16:9 ratio) and the present-day space sequences (filmed in an impressively intimidating IMAX 1.43:1 ratio) never break up the pace of the action onboard the ship.
Gosling’s character awakens on a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there or why.Jonathan Olley/Supplied
The filmmakers, who haven’t co-directed a film together since 2014’s 22 Jump Street but have maintained a fruitful creative partnership across such animated projects as The Lego Movie and the two brilliant Spider-Verse films, also balance their propensity for wink-nudge gags with the gravity of Ryland’s predicament. There is as much irreverent humour here as there is blood-pumping heart, a trick that is deeply challenging to pull off in such a grandly-scaled wannabe blockbuster.
Yet the entire project may have drifted into deep space were it not for the galaxy-sized charms of Gosling. Even though the actor plays Ryland like a super-smarter version of his many winsome, just-rolled-outta-bed heroes – especially those from his two guy’s-guy movies, The Fall Guy and The Nice Guys – you cannot help but instinctively root for the character against all possible odds. And once Ryland figures out a way to crack the code of Rocky’s language, the banter between the two drives the film’s charm levels off the charts. (The Lego-aisle-friendly alien is voiced by James Ortiz, though the filmmakers figure out a way to slip a quick celebrity-voice cameo in there.)
Will Project Hail Mary save Hollywood with its (somewhat) original concept and (somewhat) bold storytelling decisions? Will the film cement Gosling as one of the few “names” today who can sell tickets based on his star power alone? Desperate times call for desperate measures.