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"Project Hail Mary"Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher MillerWritten by Drew GoddardStarring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Milana Vayntrub, Ken Leung, Lionel BoyceRated PG-13 for some thematic material and suggestive referencesRuntime: 156 minutes Release Date: March 20, 2026
Final Thought
Final Thought
Rock-y solid and perfectly inoffensive, Project Hail Mary represents a strong return to the directors' chair for Lord and Miller and an early contender for popcorn movie of the year.
Rock-y solid and perfectly inoffensive, Project Hail Mary represents a strong return to the directors' chair for Lord and Miller and an early contender for popcorn movie of the year.
Rating
Rating
★★★★ / 5
★★★★ / 5
Logline
Logline
From Amazon MGM Studios:
Science teacher Ryland Grace 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.
Review: Project... Pixar?
Review: Project... Pixar?
The first movie that ever made me cry in a theater was Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (2015, dir. Sohn). I understand this may come as a shock, whether because that calls into question my taste or that sentence is just purely unique, but it’s true. I was almost 12 years old, and it was at the end of a tense day of shopping and eating at the mall on Black Friday. I don’t know if it was the magic of Disney or the near-screaming match between me and my father that directly preceded us entering the theater, but I have an almost-too-vivid memory of that film.
The setup is fairly conventional - baby dinosaur gets swept away in a flood and must find his way back home - but on his journey, he finds a companion: an animalistic child who has also lost his family, of which he’s also the youngest. There’s a scene near the beginning of the second act where the child communicates to the dinosaur that he believes his family to be dead, and from that moment on… waterworks. I didn’t cry this time, but I noticed overwhelming similarity between the story frameworks of The Good Dinosaur and the subject of this review, Project Hail Mary, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s fifth feature and first since 2014.
In Project Hail Mary, we meet Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a disgraced molecular biologist turned middle school teacher and the amnesiac sole survivor of a light-years-long interstellar journey. As the story flashes backwards and forwards, we learn that there is an astronomical and biological phenomena called “astrophage” that is causing the sun to dim and that Dr. Grace was tasked by the government to study, source, and mitigate this problem. On his journey of survival and recollection, he is approached by an alien ship and meets a rock-like extraterrestrial being he names Rocky. With both being the only survivors on their respective journeys - and apparent geniuses - they have to work together to find a solution to heal the sun and get home.
Lord and Miller are an interesting case. As a writing, directing, and producing duo, the two have never been officially credited in all three roles on any of their projects. In fact, they have only written-directed features twice with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and The Lego Movie (2014), both in animation, and written-produced thrice with The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) and both Spider-Verse films (2018, 2023).
This film marks the first time they serve solely as directors-producers. On every other project, they’ve only filled one role, but every story they touch, regardless of how much, feels unmistakably tied to them. In Project Hail Mary, you have possibly their biggest departure, becuase of the simple fact that this film feels - more than any of their others - mature.
In their animated projects, there is a maturity in line with what’s expected of children’s media (animated films are not necessarily always children’s media, but their animated films are) - Cloudy commenting on greed through fat mayors and giant macaroni and Lego tackling self-worth through… well, Legos - and with the Jump Street films, their only live-action features, you find a maturity level in line with that of a freshly pubescent 13-year-old teenage boy.
Through this, weirdly, Hail Mary represents the first time in which everything in their film feels attached to the real world. It deals with the most complex of relationships (best friends… fight me), depression, climate change, and other themes that aren’t discussed so much as just mentioned. Yes, this is a science-fiction film involving aliens, and at times, it feels like they’re flashing a bright neon “CRY!” sign, but I’d venture to say this film has more to say about human nature than any of their others. Also, aliens are definitely real, so…
The cast is strong and mostly game. Sandra Hüller is good in her role as the government agent spearheading the Hail Mary project, but there’s really no question that this is the Gosling show. I can’t say that I necessarily believed
Ryan Gosling in "Project Hail Mary"
him as someone with a doctorate (in molecular biology, no less), but every comedic and dramatic beat works because of him. Lord/Miller and Gosling are a bit of a match made in heaven here, as Gosling perfectly inhabits that sort of trained erraticism that Lord and Miller strive for and do so well.
Technically, the film is marvelous. It’s hard for production design to flop when there is a spaceship involved, and it’s no different for the team from this film. Grieg Fraser’s cinematography is one of the standout elements. He, Hoyte van Hoytema, and recent Oscar winner Autumn Durald Arkapaw are three of the best cinematographers working now, in my book, because of their masterful use of the IMAX aspect ratio, and that is on full display here. Interstellar (2014, dir. Nolan) is a clear visual influence here, and the shots in the void of space are particularly striking, especially those where the frame is filled with color. Lord and Miller have never been afraid of color, and I’m so glad. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Academy awards Fraser a retribution Oscar for his work on this film. The puppetry is the story of the film, however, with Rocky being a mix of animatronic and hand-puppetry. I just hope it doesn’t get muddled and/or forgotten by the VFX employed to make it appear seamless.
I know I mentioned that this film is reminiscent of The Good Dinosaur, but it’s actually actively four different films: The Martian (2015, dir. Scott), Arrival (2016, dir. Villeneuve), The Good Dinosaur, and E.T. (1982, dir. Spielberg) - it wants to be Interstellar so bad, but it only favors that film visually.
Ryan Gosling in "Project Hail Mary"
The first is for obvious reasons: The Martian and Project Hail Mary are both based on books by the same author, Andy Weir, and written by the same screenwriter, Drew Goddard. Both stories have their protagonists as scientists and sole survivors with similar comedic cadences. Both films even use recorded data log messages to deliver exposition dumps. Both Goddard and Weir and skilled writers, and The Martian is a favorite of mine, but you can tell someone found a niche they were good at and stuck to it.
The Arrival comparison was the most welcome for me as the Villeneuve film is one of my top five all-time favorite films. The sequence where Grace has to figure out how to communicate with Rocky feels ripped from Arrival’s script, but the symbiotic relationships between the protagonists and the aliens eschew each other. The same goes for Spielberg’s classic E.T. It’s hard to craft an alien story and have it exist outside of conversation with E.T., but Hail Mary does nothing to avoid it and, in fact, embraces it, with certain story beats feeling dramaturgically identical. The Good Dinosaur, though… put it in space, it’s the same movie, I’m telling you.
Effectively, Project Hail Mary borrows strong elements from strong films and reworks them into a colorful crowd-pleasing package.
Now, this is not a masterpiece. This is the case of a film where everything about it just kind of works and thus, to the general population, seems perfect. Nothing about it feels wrong or bad, it’s on the correct side of all of its arguments, it’s funny, it’s sad, it’s begrudgingly optimistic like the majority of Americans. It’s safe, and for that reason alone, it will perform well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Lord and Miller are gunning to make a Pixar film. Their great success in the animation field is undeniable, and in a way might have forced the Pixar ship to sail, but the thematic emotional complexity and inoffensive balance of whimsy and cynicism on display here might be the missing piece needed to get them that booking. We’re all overtly aware of Pixar’s need to make its audiences cry, and Project Hail Mary definitely proves, now, that Lord and Miller can do just that. The couple sniffling next to me for the duration of the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie is living proof.
Viewed on 3/14/26 in IMAX 70mm at Universal Cinema AMC at Citywalk Hollywood
Published on 3/17/26
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