Project Hail Mary

Title: Project Hail Mary
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Release Date: March 20, 2026
Run Time: 156 minutes
Genres: Science Fiction
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce
Rating:

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan 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.

Review

Project Hail Mary is a film I had both been looking forward to and dreading. I buddy read the book a few years ago and absolutely loved it, as I do all of Andy Weir’s books. When I had heard that the book was being adapted to film, I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about how the book would translate to the big screen. That didn’t stop me of course from going to see it in theatres with the family, an activity that has become increasingly rare for us with the convenience of streaming. I’m glad I made that choice however, because Project Hail Mary was a movie that demands to be watched on a big screen.

The movie has been a smash hit at the box office, and honestly it was a movie that earns the praise that it is receiving. Project Hail Mary is a science fiction adventure story about a lone scientist on a last ditch mission to investigate a crisis of catastrophic proportions. The sun is dimming, threatening to plunge Earth to cool destroying our fragile ecosystem. Scientists discover a mysterious microorganism, dubbed astrophage, that has been traveling the universe, feeding off of the energy of not just our sun, but all suns except one: Tau Ceti. The next objective becomes clear, travel to Tau Ceti and see why that distant star has resisted the proliferation of the sun-eating astrophage. The problem? Tau Ceti is light years away.

The trailers give a big piece of the story away, which I hated but understood, but Project Hail Mary is also a first contact story, and I would argue that it is one of the best in the genre. The film manages a faithful adaptation that was easy to approach and understand. My criticisms are minimal – there were one or two scenes where the musical score felt a little out of place to me given the context of the scene, and there were a few times that the story felt like it was moving too fast. That second critique is understandable though, it’s a long book and the movie was already two hours long.

As for the positives: all of the actors played their roles well! Ryan Goslin and James Ortiz have so much on-screen chemistry the friendship that their characters shared was fun to watch. Rocky was designed even better than I could have imagined and totally stole every scene in the movie! I was blown away when I found out that the film avoided CGI, instead opting for practical effects, a thing unheard of in the modern age of green screen movies. A puppet? In this era!? Last but not least, this story was hopeful, and that was something that I really needed.

Project Hail Mary is an achievement in the science fiction genre and I think this film will have some serious staying power in the cultural zeitgeist. Watching the film in theaters and seeing Tau Ceti e, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with a feeling of wonder that I hadn’t experienced in decades. This has easily become a favorite that I can’t wait to watch again.