Project Hail Mary is equal parts hilarious and uplifting.
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It's hard to imagine a better time for this movie to come out. Amidst a technological landscape that's punishingly focused on AI, in a world that feels increasingly more chaotic, and almost perfectly timed with the first major manned space travel mission from NASA, I can't think of anything better than a bit of sci-fi hopefulness with a beloved leading man trying to save the world. But being well-timed doesn't mean you made a great movie. Oh who am I kidding. This is a Phil Lord and Christopher Miller joint with a script by Drew Goddard. Of course this movie whips.
The Setup
Gosling plays Dr. Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist who's been sent on a mission to save humanity after the arrival of a sun-eating organism. Awakened from a medically induced coma light years away from home and as the sole survivor of his crew, Dr. Grace begins a frantic search for answers for a crucial question, why was this planet spared? But as it turns out, Dr. Grace might not have to brave this mission alone...
This movie is an absolute delight. Why? Well there's a lot of reasons why, some of which I'll share, before I get into the core of what makes this movie so appealing. Let's start with....
Humor
If you've seen The Martian or are familiar with screenwriter Drew Goddard and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Project Hail Mary being funny isn't a surprise. But being this consistently funny wasn't on my bingo card.
It's also not reliant on one kind of humor. As much as I like The Martian most of the humor in that movie was reliant on Matt Damon's reactions to his circumstances or quips or a character being a bit weirder than you might expect.
Whereas here we're having fun with Ryan Gosling being a bumbling man child, over-the-top physical gags in the spaceship (or with the spaceship), and even a funny series of translations from our rock alien friend Rocky that are awkward uses of human phrases.
It's also essential the movie's tone.
If you're aiming for an upbeat movie about the power of ingenuity, connection and collaboration, you can't keep hammering home the apocalyptic elephant in the room. So you use humor to lighten the mood.
And done correctly this also means that the dramatic and heartfelt moments actually hit home because we've spent a lot of time enjoying ourselves with Dr. Grace and Rocky and don't want anything to happen to them.
A Great Visual Approach
The movie is divided up into two distinct visual approaches. The first is in the present day in space with the second being the series of flashbacks that explain how Grace ended up here.
The first is easily the most fun visually with a lot fun choices with the camera where the angle emphasizes how the space feels to Grace and a giant physical set that they constructed for the film. There's a lot of reasons this is smart, but the biggest one is that with so many physical/tangible items, it also makes you less reliant on CGI on a scene to scene basis, outside of our alien mate Rocky.
Also I love the design of Rocky and everything around him. Everything about him and his craft looks like cubist abstract art when it's a cube he rolls around in or what appears to be an Interstellar-inspired craft. And when the movie does decide to poke out into space, there's some choice use of colors and contrast.
Also I love the design of Rocky and everything around him. Everything about him and his craft looks like cubist abstract art when it's a cube he rolls around in or what appears to be an Interstellar-inspired craft. And when the movie does decide to poke out into space, there's some choice use of colors and contrast.
It's also an entirely different look and feel to the grounded, handheld camera work occurring in the flashbacks, which amplifies the feeling of these being memories.
These segments are also much more desaturated, not so gently hinting at the less dynamic and heated world humanity is about to inhabit, and also the militaristic atmosphere that Grace is now a part of, whether he wants to be or not.
Perfect Use of Ryan Gosling
I had at least one friend that wondered if Ryan Gosling could pull off the "genius molecular biologist," for this movie. Which I get. Gosling's two primary on-screen personas are dangerous brooding types and agreeably silly himbos. And brooding and dangerous isn't going to work here.
What I like is that the movie makes Gosling's Grace smart about what he's smart about but awkward and clumsy about damn near everything else. So he can concoct an experiment to test a hypothesis and prove something no one else has been able to do, while also sounding like the silliest man in the room.
This is also great because Grace as a character needs to contradict some of the traditional sci-fi hero tropes. The flashback sequences make it clear that Grace doesn't view himself as brave and seems to rail against the concept of bravery or sacrificing his life for the common good (since his mission is a suicide mission).
It also can't be overlooked that Gosling is more or less acting against another character that isn't there and still provides every bit of irritation, joy and concern for his rock alien co-star that he would for a human character.
The Core of Why It Works: This is A Phenomenal Star Trek Movie
If you ask a lot of Star Trek fans about their favorite movies with the original crew, number one with a bullet is almost always II: The Wrath of Khan. And the one I've heard put second more often than not? IV: or as you might remember it, the one with the whales.
It's also...a bouncy fish out of water comedy where our heroes go through a series of comedic misadventures and some tense moments to solve an apocalyptic threat to human existence, using Star Fleek values like collaboration and unconventional solutions to solve their problems.
Which is exactly why this movie works so well.
It's a push and pull between our lead and his ultimate mission to save humanity and his new rock friend's planet essentially using most elaborate, tense and visual pleasing forms of data collection and scientific experimentation to save two worlds. All with a giant assist from the power of friendship and connection.
Rocky's involvement and treatment in the film is also very Star Trek as well...and more than a bit welcome right now.
As much as I enjoy dark sci-fi, I do think the emphasis on "all alien life is likely hostile" is both depressing and demonstrates a deeper distrust of the other on a human level than a lot of us care to dig deep on. As opposed to creatures whose experiences including their fears and joys likely mirror our own.
It's not lost on me, that even though the film gives a scientific reason why Rocky and Dr. Grace has to speak through barriers, a lot of the visuals emphasize mirror like imagery with each party gazing at each other through a thin barrier at the same level. And if you can't collaborate with someone like yourself, how can you possibly solve the world's problems.
As much as other reviews and even Gosling himself has emphasized the human ability to solve big problems and come up with inventive solutions, I think it's real message is that connection and collaboration is an integral part to those solutions succeed. Dr. Grace and Rocky can't do this by themselves. They need each other to make this work. Embracing connection is the only thing that save their worlds. It's what makes us brave. Encourages us to do dangerous things for the greater good. And can even save our lives.
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