Directed By Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Starring – Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, James Ortiz

The Plot – Based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, science teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone

Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and suggestive references.

Project Hail Mary – Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Crowd-pleasers typically breed with them an air of schmaltzy artificiality that chaotically compromise the integrity of meaningful conflict, but there’s a real grounded sense of sentimentality and science that drives Project Hail Mary into feeling irresistibly infectious, led by a dynamic combination on and off screen that not only find impeccable temperament among the many tonal evolutions of its material, but also a massive scope to its space-age spectacle that proves no spare cent was wasted fleshing out the immensity of the ever-expanding universe. For off-screen, there’s a dream team collaboration of Lord and Miller, two brilliant comic writers who penned The Lego Movie and Into the Spider-Verse, and now take their first directing efforts since 2014’s 22 Jump Street, with Drew Goddard, a man previously synonymous with adapting Weir’s novel, The Martian, and between giving the film an affectionately gentle sense of personality that eventually warms its way into your heart, without underwhelming the urgency or magnitude of the stakes that continuously hang in the balance throughout this two-and-a-half hour engagement, as well as an introspective examination of reflective friendship, the film doesn’t rest on the laurels of being just another deep delve into the isolated depths of space, instead investing firmly in empathetic emotions and vulnerability, as a means of unlocking so much insight about these characters. That’s not to say that the science itself isn’t impressive, as the often heavy-handed exposition to the interpretive audience is smoothed over incredibly in ways that feel thoroughly analyzing without feeling directly spoon-fed in the ways it conveys understanding to its terminology and concepts, but rather Goddard’s investment to the trial and error of humanity that keeps the story from ever losing sight of what hangs in the balance, with a steadily healthy dose of appealing personality amidst surprisingly optimistic material for a doomsday scenario that makes this story so uniquely accessible to a variety of audiences. While Lord and Miller certainly maximize a spellbinding spectrum of a presentation surprisingly free from green-screen backdrops that involves weightlessly immersive cinematography from Greig Fraser floating on gravity, alongside Daniel Pemberton’s buoyant score of astonishing wonder and underlining urgency, their single most effective impulsive instinct is the ample time they take towards fleshing out this unforeseen surmising friendship between Ryland and an alien creature named Rocky, whose initial tribulations with communication quickly give way to a tenderly warm and effortlessly indulging dynamic between them so authentically genuine with sincerity that it nearly made me forget about the world-threatening situation that Ryland is there to alleviate in the first place. It’s intriguing enough that their frequent banter evokes many strange ironies about the English language and expressionism, which capture the advantageous elements of technology serving as a kinetic link between them, particularly once lingo is brought into the fold of their skewered translation, but their irreplaceable unity is most vital to the story when their shared interactions and experiences uncover similarities of grief and the commonalities of their respective missions, which takes them from tepid strangers to partners, companions, and eventually best friends, all in the way of doubling down on the aforementioned stakes, and while it constantly shares screentime with a dual arc of timelines between Ryland’s time preparing for the mission, and his current day narrative alone on this ship and searching for answers, it’s clearly the moments with Rocky that move the proverbial needle the furthest towards attaching intimately with an adoring audience, especially once the difficulties of their mission present some unforeseen obstacles that produce tremendously compelling drama during such a spine-tingling climax. With regards to that aforementioned dual timelines, it would be easy for the movie to feel tediously cluttered or the pacing strained, on account of frequent transitions throughout the movie’s progress, but the transitions repeatedly flow seamlessly as a result of gimmicked editing techniques that flow intrusively like a sea of uncovered thoughts and suppressed memories, where uncovered bits of exposition from the past serve to echo relevancy to an action in the present, all the while stitching together two equally endearing arcs that maintain the movie’s momentum, even when they cutaway during some of the most climactic of moments. With most movies attempting dual timelines, typically one of them will feel noticeably inferior to the other, in terms of entertainment value and time distribution, and while the past has the impossible task of following up the Ryland and Rocky show, there’s enough overarching mystery to the questions of Ryland’s awakening that it doesn’t outright answer until it corresponds brilliantly with the fearlessly brave scientist that we see before us during the current day arc, helping to comprehend the magnitude of his transformation, even as the script is admittedly quite brief in establishing who Ryland was before he was recruited to save the world. Finally, the crafting merits off-screen are balanced wonderfully by the performances on-screen, particularly those of Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, and James Ortiz, who each radiate respectively during the moments that they meticulously pluck. For Gosling, it’s not only the impressive stature to maintain entertaining composure during a majority of scenes in which he’s acting alone, but also his razor sharp instinct for comedic timing that doesn’t feel forced or straining in how he responds impulsively to the chaos and magnitude of Ryland’s mission, bringing a sincerity and open-ended vulnerability towards a role that simultaneously allows the emotional beats to land with rippled heft, all towards cementing what I legitimately feel is his single most encompassing performance of his wide range of talents. As for Huller and Ortiz, while they’re both relegated to supporting roles orbiting Gosling’s bottled magic, there’s ample opportunity for each of them to leave impressionable turns along the way, particularly Huller’s stoically dry standard as Eva, whose unflinching persistence is so sternly serious that you can’t help but laugh during certain lines, and Ortiz’s undivided commitment to craft that sees him simultaneously serving as the lead puppeteer enacting Rocky’s practical design, as well as the computerized vocals that lend themselves to bridging the language barrier between this alien and his new human buddy.

NEGATIVES

The complete production mostly lends itself to what will undeniably be one of the year’s best movies, but even in the extent of their visually dazzling and narratively nourishing execution, there are some occasional speedbumps that take away the meaningful magnitude of this movie’s finished product, particularly a bit of an overlong runtime that exceeds the length that this particular story needs to fully tell it. While I wasn’t ever bored by the length of this journey, there were times when my patience was tested, such as the beginning of the second act, where the storytelling forgets about the past arc, and instead focuses more firmly on the developing bond between Ryland and Rocky. I can understand that certain plot developments require attention to coherently flesh them out integrally to the audience, but there are scenes during this section that overly indulge in repetition, echoing more of the consistencies of a novel, rather than the pacing of a feature length film. The second act isn’t even the only time where repetition is felt among the sequencing, as the third act climax also felt so long in the tooth that the finished product feels roughly twenty minutes longer than it rightfully should’ve been, especially considering the film doesn’t always feel entirely committed to where it’s exactly ending the narrative, leaving feelings of impatience during an intentionally touching last few shots, where the extent of the journey finally catches up to the attention span of the audience. In addition to this, my only other problem with the film coincides with a previously mentioned point of Ryland’s lack of a backstory during the initial beats of the past timeline. While I can’t exactly speak for the book that I’ve never read, I will say that his minimalized development during the movie’s first few scenes not only left me needing a bit longer to invest empathetically into his character, but also undercut the magnitude of his fully-fledged evolution, which feels shoehorned into a singular scene, near the movie’s big reveal. To me, I’ve always appreciated when the evidence of a character’s shift feels fully ingrained into the dimensionality of the material, but it almost feels like the movie is banking of Gosling’s charming cadence over characterization, and it leaves Ryland feeling a little thin during those initial first few beats, beyond being established as a brilliant teacher who communicates well with his students.

OVERALL
Project Hail Mary is a crowd-pleasing science fiction odyssey of an experience that combines visually immersive production values with gravitating performances, all in order to craft a sugary sweet engagement that shoots for the stars. Despite the immensity of its luminously radiant presentation that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen imaginable, the film is most endearing by the intimately affectionate blossoming bromance of two species from different worlds, whose flawless chemistry, objective commonality, and unshakeable banter cement optimistic underlining to the urgency of this doomsday scenario, where even an overlong two-and-a-half hour runtime has enough fuel in the tank to reach its intended destination

My Grade: 9.1 or A