'Project Hail Mary' Will Go Down as One of the Greatest Sci-Fi Films Ever
The hype behind the new Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi epic, Project Hail Mary, is at a fever pitch. Gosling has even mocked his own promotion of the film on SNL, and with a few tongue-in-cheek promos in which he tried to convince Mikey Day to just randomly say catchphrases from the film, despite the fact that at that time, nobody in the public had seen it. Film buffs probably already know there are 12 different theater formats to choose from, all while your social media feed has probably been populated with bookish people saying "amaze amaze amaze" and talking about something called "astrophage." Does all this hype kill the actual experience of Project Hail Mary? By the time the film is out in wide release on March 20, will it seem like you've already seen it because of all the promotion? Should you care?
The short answer is this: I could spoil every bit of Project Hail Mary right now, and it wouldn't match the experience of watching it on the big screen. This isn't a popcorn movie for the sake of it (like say, the divisiveTron: Ares), and it's not a franchise comeback with a ton of heart (like Thunderbolts*or Fantastic Four). This is the kind of blockbuster that your parents might have dragged you to in the '80s or '90s and then turned out to be life-changing. It's an instant classic sci-fi film that actually gets a lot of science fiction ideas right in a way that feels unprecedented because it actually is unprecedented.
Dead, beloved sci-fi authors like Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein frequently roll in their graves when certain kinds of slop get made into major movies. But with Project Hail Mary, you know their ghosts are punching the air while Arthur C. Clarke is cracking a beer. This is the movie that space-loving science fiction fans (and science fans) have been wanting for decades.
Much of the plausible and realistic-ish sci-fi is thanks not just to directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, but also to novelist Andy Weir, who wrote the 2021 novel upon which Project Hail Mary is based. Book purists will point out that much has been streamlined here, but what's more surprising about the films is how much of the intelligent structure and pacing Drew Goddard's screenplay retains from Weir's novel. If you've not read the book, you'll want to right after seeing the film, partly because you'll be surprised by just how well this very in-the-weeds-on-the-science book was elegantly translated into a mainstream film for literary anyone and everyone.
This point is crucial: When I say that Project Hail Mary is for everyone, I mean that in the truest sense. Countless film critics will force themselves to compare Project Hail Mary to the 2015 Ridley Scott film The Martian, because it too starred a compelling lead actor, and was also based on Weir's runaway bestseller of the same name. But The Martian isn't a classic. It's very good, but it's a good movie for sci-fi fans and people who love the book. It's also very much a movie for adults, exclusively.
Project Hail Mary is something else: It's a very clean-cut film (does anyone swear?) about hope, and how both human frailty and human courage could save the world. Your inner-10-year-old will love it, as will, I suspect, some space-obsessed contemporary 10-year-olds. Your mom will love this movie. You can treat this movie as a date night movie. Or, you can see it by yourself to make yourself feel better about life, the universe, and everything.
Keep in mind, I say all this without even mentioning the movie's secret weapon: A little alien named Rocky (James Ortiz) who meets Gosling's Ryland Grace and teams up with him to save the stars. Discussing the Rocky-Grace relationship is almost too much of an emotional spoiler, so I'll just say that if you're not moved by this bromance in space, you have no heart.
Project Hail Mary doesn't just live up to the hype; it demands to be seen again, and if we're lucky, it will set a new standard for a certain brand of crowdpleaser. They don't make them like this anymore, perhaps, because they never did until now.