2026's Project Hail Mary is like a cinematic jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces that still need attention. I mean its narrative structure is so fragmented you'd think helmers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were trying to get their veritable, Christopher Nolan on. "Hail Mary's" lead (Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace), well he pulls you through somehow, being charismatic and unconventional as only the Ry dog can. So OK, that begs the question, do we really need another astronaut flick starring London, Ontario's favorite son? I guess. Uh, maybe.
Anyway let's get back to the movie as a whole shall we. Project Hail Mary is a bit of a chore to sit through and it probably needed to trim about 15-20 minutes from ye olde runtime. Gosling talking to an alien rock that looks and walks like a tarantula for a good hour. Random flashbacks that turn into random flash-forwards. Techspeak concerning astrophage and global cooling, stuff only hardcore AI eccentrics could understand. Yeah "Hail Mary" has a few moments of awe and wonderment but it's also a painful reminder of why high schoolers skip class occasionally because teach decides to roll out a scientific filmstrip on a Tuesday. Yikes!
All in all, Project Hail Mary is about junior high professor Ryland Grace (Gosling) being tapped by the government to save Earth and the sun from a deadly medium threatening mankind as we know it. He must get on a spacecraft with other chance crew members and travel light years away.
The direction by Lord and Miller is claustrophobic and effective and the editing, well it's feverish at times, possibly to entertain in fits and starts. The problem with "Hail Mary" is that it sort of keeps the viewer at a distance, wandering and dawdling when it could instead take to the air (pun intended). I mean Project Hail Mary is literally like Interstellar without the sadness and danger. Oh and don't get me started on its comparisons to something more emotive like E.T. Project "x out."
Written by Jesse Burleson
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