There are so many things to praise about Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s adaptation of Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling I don’t know where to start this review. Should I begin with the cinematography? The score? The pacing? Acting? Visual effects? Every element of this movie is so good it’s almost too much to process. But that’s exactly why I know what to end with, because they all combined to create a theatrical experience worthy of the highest accolade I can think to give any film: Project Hail Mary made me romantic for movies.
I’ve not sure I’ve ever gone into any film with a more conflicting set of expectations than I did for Project Hail Mary. Despite loving The Martian and really liking Artemis, I did not like Andy Weir’s third novel. (And that’s being polite.) But two of my favorite directors decided to bring it to the screen with one of my favorite actors in the lead. Then they picked the single most perfect actress on the planet in Sandra Hüller to fill a major role. Ultimately a bunch of people I love were going to adapt a book I found endlessly frustrating. Essentially this film was my own personal cinematic version of immovable object meets unstoppable force.
In this case the movie was the unstoppable force because it did, in fact, move me. It didn’t just win me over, it knocked me on my ass. I couldn’t ask for anything more from a moviegoing experience than what Project Hail Mary gave me. It’s everything you could possibly want from a cinematic experience. For one it looks amazing in every way. It’s a sci-fi space story, one where the co-lead is an alien who is essentially a sentient genius pile of moving rocks, without seams. The combination of CGI, practical effects, and practical sets are so incredible you’d think they actually filmed on a giant (stunning, immersive) spaceship in deep space with an actual alien. And both simple and complex shots are framed in such a way that I constantly found myself awed just by the cinematography.
The same is true of the pacing, which always finds the right chord to play whether its hitting a frantic, melancholy, reflective, thrilling, or humorous note. It hits all of those repeatedly, because while Project Hail Mary is most like a comedy sci-fi thriller, there are quiet moments in this film so beautiful they completely overwhelmed me. This is a deeply human film rich in themes about being alive and what we do with our lives and what we do for others. It also explores loss, regret, failure, and sacrifice in ways that feel so true I found myself fighting off tears mere moments after laughing at entire sequences.
A lot of that has to do with Ryan Gosling’s performance. My biggest issues with Weir’s book is the way he wrote his main character, Ryland Grace. The book version of the teacher-turned-unlikely savior of multiple planets comes across as insincere and phony. He read more like the idea of a person rather than an actual human. As do many of the other human characters in the novel, where Rocky the alien is somehow the only one who talks and behaves like a real person.
Gosling makes Ryland feel wholly real and authentic. It’s very much a Gosling performance in that he’s charming, funny, and likable. But at no point did I ever feel like I was watching Ryan Gosling. He wholly embodies Grace, and his Ryland, a good man full of quiet sadness, is infinitely superior to the one on the page. Gosling solves the fatal problem I (not everyone) had with the book.
The film absolutely captures why Rocky is the best part of the novel, too. He’s just as funny, heartbreaking, and wonderful on screen as he is on the page. The real miracle is that Lord and Miller—along with Gosling who gives this performance despite spending much of the movie acting opposite a puppet—make Rocky feel totally alive. Considering they worked with two legends in Neal Scanlan, who designed and created Rocky, and puppeteer James Ortiz, it shouldn’t be that surprising. And yet, it’s impossible to convey just how lively Rocky really is. I have no idea when he’s a puppet, animatronic, or if he’s ever CGI.
Daniel Pemberton’s fantastic score is the glue that binds everything together. There are sequences where the music is so good it feels like you can touch it. Along with a stellar soundtrack, it’s going to be hard for many movies in 2026 to sound as good as Project Hail Mary.
I do have some small complaints. I wish the movie found a way to at least reference more of the novel’s big-picture geopolitical problems. There’s a whole globe worth of stories going on around Ryland in Weir’s book. They make his personal story richer because we come to understand the dying planet he’s trying to save. And it also would have strengthened Ryland’s arc to touch on his identity as a teacher a little more overtly.
My biggest complaint is that Sandra Hüller’s Eva Stratt isn’t in it enough. Weir’s book is a big story despite not having many characters and being told in an intimate way. Like the film, half is told half in flashback and half in deep space. Cuts needed to be made. Most of them make total sense, too. From a purely page-to-screen perspective, this is an excellent adaptation that is incredibly faithful. But it still needed to find a way to give us more of Stratt on screen. Especially since Hüller was quite literally the best possible person for the role.
No surprise she crushes every scene she’s in with a very nuanced performance. Her most noteworthy sequence is so good I’m getting goosebumps just writing about it even though not much happens. It’s just a world class performer giving depth and weight to a complex character while doing the most human thing of all, singing.
“I wanted more of one of the countless awesome parts of this movie” isn’t exactly damning, I know. But that’s the point. If that all makes it sound like I loved this movie though, you have the wrong impression. I mean, I did. Obviously. But I love lots of movies. I’ve seen lots of movies I think are objectively better, too. The difference is that a lot of those “better” movies never made me feel the way Project Hail Mary did both while I was watching it and when I walked out of my screening.
It made me romantic about cinema, about what’s possible on those rare occasions when you sit down in a theater and everything hits you in a way you always hope for but never fully expect. It happens when the combined work of so many talented people all operate at the peak of their powers to combine visuals, ideas, music, performances, hope, fear, humor, and a million other things you can’t even articulate into one piece of art that moves your soul. Into something that makes you feel good to be alive. Into something that reminds you why you ever loved movies and stories in the first place.
I still don’t know where to start with my praise of Project Hail Mary, a truly hopeful and beautiful movie I hope you see on the biggest, best sounding screen you can find. And when you do, I hope it makes you feel the same way I did.
⭐ (5 of 5)
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He will always and forever love Rocky. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post PROJECT HAIL MARY Made Me Romantic About Movies (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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