Project Hail Mary
Project Hail Mary (2026)
Image From IMDB
It’s safe to say Project Hail Mary was the film I was looking forward to most this year. The book is one of my favourite modern reads, and I like all the film makers involved from Lord and Millar to Drew Godard and Andy Weir. Alongside the talent behind the camera Ryan Gosling seemed like perfect casting as Grace to me… so my expectations were high. I’m very happy to say the film delivered on all fronts, and it was great to see the cinema full despite watching the movie first thing on a Monday morning.
Project Hail Mary follows the story of Ryland Grace as he travels to another planetary system to investigate why their sun, unlike ours, isn’t being infected by the organism known as astrophage, which is slowly inadvertently bringing about the end of the Earth. There, he teams up with an alien rock spider (Rocky) whose own sun has also been affected. Together, the duo form a friendship while they attempt to save their worlds.
Project Hail Mary is a beautiful book, and a lot of that charm and kindness translated to the movie version. Anyone who read the book would have undoubtedly been mostly looking forward to seeing how they portrayed Rocky, and I think this is probably the movies biggest strength, because they done the loveable critter a great a service. His look is amaze, the puppetry was at a whole other level for modern movies, and most importantly, Rocky felt alive for the whole film. The heart of the story was in tact. James Ortiz done a brilliant job. Statement.
Ryan Gosling was fantastic as Grace too, excelling at both the space stuff and the Earth based stuff. I thought the first few minutes were a little silly, but once he settled into Grace it was how I imagined. He just has a charm and loneliness about him that always works for these sort of characters.
The friendship story of Grace and Rocky was still front and centre, with Rocky’s crazy energy getting plenty of laugh’s in the cinema. The Earth projection screen onboard the Hail Mary was used to good effect (was that part in the book? I don’t recall it) And overall everyone in the cinema seemed to massively enjoy every scene the two spent together.
The effects looked great, and it was lovely to see a film with some actual colour in it rather than the drab colour grading we seem to get on everything else nowadays. The limited support cast all played their part too with Sandra Huller’s Start being a stand out, and Lionel Boyce’s Carl also entertaining.
I guess the thing I liked about the movie the most it what I like most about all of Andy Weir’s writing to date, everyone’s kind and heroic in his stories, even if they’re not meant to be, or see them themselves differently. I always feel good reading his books, and Project Hail Mary had that same vibe about it (As did the Martian) It’s a feel good movie about friendship, but wrapped in some fantastic science fiction.
Anyone who enjoyed the book should love the movie, little’s been changed outside of the Me Burgers and I can see why that went (given my statement above) All the performances are strong, and making Rocky a puppet rather than a CGI mess is what should have always been done (but rarely is). It’s a great film, and one i’d highly recommend, although I think you should read the book first to get the most out of both.
