Project Hail Mary is the newest Ryan Gosling movie, and it’s spreading hope and joy to a world that is now in love with a rock.
Personally, I wanted to see this in IMAX because it’s a space movie with amazing sound design, an incredible score, and world-class visuals, but my mother (love her to death) doesn’t like IMAX because they don’t have recliners, so we compromised by seeing it in Dolby. Anyone who can see this in IMAX during its extended theater run should absolutely do so. Everything about this movie is great.
The standout in the film is the relationship between the human character, Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, and the alien Rocky, voiced by James Ortiz. Their budding friendship works because of the amazing chemistry between the two actors. Ortiz reportedly stayed present for scenes that only needed the puppet, where he didn’t need to be there because he didn’t want Gosling to be alone. The two would get into character by improving at each other for hours as their characters, making each other laugh. That kind of chemistry is palpable in the movie.
As previously mentioned, the movie has incredible visuals, made possible by the wonderfully talented cinematographer Greig Fraser, who has worked on movies like The Batman and both Dune movies. Fraser and the effects team helped to blend practical elements with CGI to make magic. There are so many amazing sequences that left my jaw on the floor with how pretty they looked, particularly the scene where they collect the astrophage above the planet, and the scene where they go fishing for life on the planet. Fraser also used a process that I don’t fully understand, where he positioned the camera lens at a 90-degree angle to get vertical flares to transition between flashback scenes on Earth.
This leads me to the Earth scenes. These parts of the movie are very effective at establishing the actual plot and showing us who Grace really is. At his core, he is a coward who runs away from a promising career and refuses to go to space even if it means dooming the Earth.
*SPOILERS
The story going from Grace being given only three hours to “decide” whether or not he will essentially throw away his life for the mission and being forced to go anyway, to Rocky giving him all the time he needs to decide whether to go back home and ultimately choosing to stay is so wonderful. This difference warms my heart, especially since he gets to be a teacher for Rocky’s species, and cements Rocky as a true friend who actually cares about Grace.
This movie preaches a message of hope that isn’t coming from a lot of places in the world. Everything is so cynical nowadays, so it’s refreshing to see a movie about unity and working together to solve problems.