PROJECT HAIL MARY Reviewed by GREG KING
Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Priya Kansara.
The term “Hail Mary” derives from American football and refers to a desperate, last ditch play that would win the game. It was originally coined in the 1930s.
Middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there or why he is there. Slowly his memory begins to return and he recalls having been chosen by German scientist Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller, from Anatomy Of A Fall, etc) to be part of an international team embarked on a desperate mission to save the sun, which is slowly being dimmed by a powerful organism known named Petrova. The Petrova is a mysterious organism known as an astrophage (apparently Greek for “star eater”). The sun is dying as a result and it is estimated that half the world’s population would be dead within 30 years.
Grace was once a microbiologist who wrote a ground-breaking scientific paper asserting that life does not require water before being shunned by the scientific community. But his discoveries about the nature of the astrophage give the scientific community hope that they can intercept it, study it and destroy it before life on planet Earth is wiped out.
Stratt creates Project Hail Mary, an international effort to send a crew on an investigative suicide mission to Tau Ceti, a distant star that has not yet been consumed by the Petrova. Reluctantly, Grace is chosen as part of the three man crew sent into space to investigate. The space craft will not have enough fuel for the crew to return to Earth, but it is intended that will be able to send specimens back to Earth for the scientists to study.
He wakes to learn that he is the only member of the three man crew to have survived the light years journey into space, with both the captain and engineer lying dead in their pods. While adjusting to understand the parameters of his mission, Grace notices that his craft is being shadowed by a mysterious alien craft. The alien craft docks with the Hail Mary, and Grace discovers the alien ship’s sole occupant to be a five-legged crab-like rock creature, an Eridian engineer from the planet 40 Eridian.
Grace names the alien Rocky (voiced by US puppet designer and puppeteer James Ortiz), because of his body shape and also as an homage to the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa, as played by Sylvester Stallone in the Oscar winning movie. Rocky is an interesting creation, and his sense of humour and enthusiasm reminded me of Groot, from the Guardians Of The Galaxy series. Grace and Rocky overcome their language barrier and learn to collaborate on the mission, as Rocky’s planet is also in danger of dying if the sun dies. The relationship that develops between him and Rocky gives the film the feel of an old-fashioned buddy movie with plenty of warmth and humour, and it gives the material much of its emotional heft.
Project Hail Mary has been adapted from the best-selling 2021 novel written by Andy Weir, who previously gave us the superb Ridley Scott directed outer space survival drama The Martian with its solid mix of sci-fi and hard science. The novel has again been adapted for the screen by scriptwriter Drew Goddard and offers up a blend of high concept sci-fi drama and hard science, as it explores the details of problem solving and scientific experimentation. However here there is more of an emphasis on the sci-fi elements, and the film is not as grounded in reality as that film. As with his adaptation of The Martian, Goddard’s script remains reasonably faithful to the source material. The basic plot of a suicide mission to save a dying sun will remind many of Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine.
Project Hail Mary has been directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who have mainly worked in animation films like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, although they made their live action feature debut with an adaptation of the tv series 21 Jump Street in 2012. Given their often playful and visually inventive approach and their involvement with both the animated Lego Movie and the Spiderverse franchise it’s not surprising that Miller and Lord’s instincts are to lean into the humour of the piece.
Venturing back into space for the first time since 2018’s First Man, Gosling is on screen for virtually the whole film. He is effortlessly endearing and finds plenty of slapstick moments early on as the geeky Grace stumbles about the spaceship trying to piece together what his mission is. Gosling brings plenty of charm, charisma, endearing awkwardness and innate likeability to his role as Grace initially copes with his sense of disorientation. Gosling also imbues his Grace with a sense of hopelessness, self-doubt and vulnerability. Huller lends gravitas to her role as Stratt, the no-nonsense head of the mission.
A series of flashback sequences slowly give us the backstory of Grace and the mission that puts the situation into context.
The special visual effects and Charles Wood’s design for the interior of the spaceship are impressive. Many of the external shots of the spaceships in the middle of outer space are reminiscent of what Stanley Kubrick achieved with his 2001: A Space Odyssey sixty years earlier. Project Hail Mary looks spectacular courtesy of the awe inspiring wide screen lensing from Australian cinematographer Greig Fraser (Dune, etc). The film deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
Despite a running time of over 150 minutes Project Hail Mary never feels cumbersome or bloated. Lord and Miller maintain a steady pace throughout, resulting in one of the most entertaining and better sci-fi movies to hit the cinema for several years.
★★★☆
