Project Hail Mary Review

Lord and Miller bring their comic timing to hard science fiction and it turns out to be the right instrument for it. The structure alternates between Ryland Grace alone on the Hail Mary, piecing together a mission he cannot remember, and the flashbacks that assembled it, and the cutting keeps a long film moving. What critics agree on is the visual work.

The ship interiors are lived in rather than sleek, the Tau Ceti sequences have real scale, and Rocky, a spider shaped alien who communicates in tones, is a feat of design and puppetry that stays a character rather than a mascot. Gosling plays a competent man who is frightened and funny about it, and the friendship at the center carries the second half.

The reservations are consistent too. The film is derivative by design, borrowing structure from The Martian and awe from Contact, and it knows it. The problem solving beats arrive on a schedule, and the tone occasionally sands the danger down until nothing feels genuinely lost. Sandra Huller, playing the official who assembled the mission, gives the flashbacks a hard edge that the present tense sections lack. Crowd pleasing, generous, and a little safe.