Posted in: Amazon MGM Studios, Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review | Tagged: Lord and Miller, Project Hail Mary, ryan gosling

Project Hail Mary Review: A Perfect Film That Leaves You Wanting More

There were so many ways Project Hail Mary could have gone off the rails, but when the right people are in front and behind the camera, telling the right story, magic happens.

Project Hail Mary is a superb piece of science fiction, masterfully acted, perfectly paced, and beautifully directed, and will leave you laughing, crying, and wanting more.

Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Summary: Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spaceship light-years from Earth. As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance killing the sun, and save Earth. An unexpected friendship may be the key.

It might be time to admit that author Andy Weir writes books that are very good at being adapted into movies. When The Martian was released back in 2015, it was the kind of science fiction that people dream about. It was funny, smart, moving, and carried by excellent actors delivering top-tier performances and a director putting in some of their career-best work. Now, nearly a decade later, another of Weir's books is making its way to the big screen, and we're seeing it play out yet again. Project Hail Mary is just as good as The Martian, funny, moving, carried by excellent actors delivering career-best performances, and by directors bringing their A game. It's March, and we already have our first perfect movie of 2026.

Much like The Martian, Project Hail Mary lives and dies by its leading man, and Ryan Gosling is fantastic in the role of Ryland Grace. The film is told linearly, with flashbacks to events before the mission intersecting throughout, as we learn how Ryland went from being involved in planning the mission to being the only living member left to try to figure everything out. It's a challenge to try and carry a movie the way he does, and even when Rocky the alien shows up, you know that Gosling is still mostly on his own. He gets you entirely invested not only in the mission, but also in Grace's internal journey as he tries to remember how he got there, his relationship with Rocky, and just what he's going to sacrifice to finish this suicide mission.

Gosling might be the one who keeps Project Hail Mary alive, but he's backed up by a fantastic supporting cast. James Ortiz is the voice and lead puppeteer for Rocky, and if there is a secondary heart of the film aside from Ryland, it's Rocky. The design of Rocky is already fascinating, but the way the film navigates the fact that Ryland and Rocky cannot coexist in the same space is awesome. A little spider made of rocks rolls around a glass ball in the ship. Sandra Hüller is the head of the Hail Mary project, Eva Stratt, and we see a lot of her in the flashback scenes. She's a fascinating character who adds more layers as we get closer to mission launch.

The way the film tells the stories of Ryland in space, and the lead-up to mission launch, makes this one of the rare times a movie has justified its over two-and-a-half-hour runtime. It keeps things moving and flowing in way that you don't ever feel bored or even distracted. The runtime flies by to the point it could have been longer, and it probably would have worked out just fine. We are learning about the lead-up to mission launch with Ryland, which keeps us invested in the emotional journey this character is on while also remaining focused on the primary mission of saving the sun.

There has already been quite a bit said about Project Hail Mary and how it is relying on practical effects. While that is obviously not applicable to the vast vacuum of space, it does mean that the ship feels extremely tangible in a way that science fiction space ships sometimes don't. They can sometimes feel very artificial and fake because only pieces of them exist in the real world. Because directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller relied heavily on practical sets for the ship, everything, including Rocky, feels even more real. When we do see special effects in space or the designs of Ryland's or Rocky's ships from the outside, they are fantastic-looking. This is a movie that makes space look beautiful and makes you want to be an astronaut.

Project Hail Mary will be one of the great movies of 2026 and will become a new science fiction classic. It needs to be experienced in a movie theater because it's that good. This review doesn't contain any negatives because after several days of sitting and thinking on this film, none have come to mind. The music, the acting, the cinematography, it all works and comes together beautifully.

It's another example of miracle filmmaking because getting a story this big to work this well is not easy. There were so many ways Project Hail Mary could have gone off the rails, but when the right people are in front and behind the camera, telling the right story, magic happens, and that's what this is: pure cinematic magic, through and through.

Project Hail Mary

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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10/10

Project Hail Mary is a superb piece of science fiction, masterfully acted, perfectly paced, and beautifully directed, and will leave you laughing, crying, and wanting more. 

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