#279: Project Hail Mary
Release Date: March 20th, 2026
Format: DCP (Cinemark Century Orange and XD) Written by: Drew Goddard Directed by: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller 3.5 Stars
Project Hail Mary is a celebration of Hollywood blockbuster storytelling.
It’s got a big movie star in Ryan Gosling (who is quietly making his case as the best Hollywood leading man of the past decade).
It’s got a big budget ($200 million).
It’s got big special effects (it’s an Amazon production, so you get the sense that just about any idea is on the table).
Most importantly, it’s a real crowd-pleaser. It’s got a populist, unifying message about being brave and doing what is right. It’ll excite you one moment and pull at your heart strings the next.
It’s not a perfect movie, though. Screenwriter Drew Goddard (Cloverfield, The Cabin in the Woods, World War Z, The Martian) and directing partners Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the Jump Street movies, The Lego Movie) are more interested in pizzazz than their own lead character.
Our film’s protagonist is middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling). He has a doctorate in molecular biology, and when global scientists detect a dimming of the earth’s sun that threatens our very existence, a U.N. official named Eva Stratt (an excellent Sandra Hüller) recruits Grace to help save the world, based on his radical thesis from graduate school that apparently got him disowned from the university.
That’s all well and good, but what else do we know about Grace? The character is in virtually every single scene in this two-and-a-half hour movie, so you would think Goddard would flesh out this character a bit. We learn that Grace is not in a relationship (Goddard even throws in the cliche that Grace is too into his own work). We hear in passing that he has no immediate family (no further explanation is given). He rides a bike to work…that’s about it. Really. Goddard provides us no sense of his upbringing, his beliefs, his friends, or his regrets.
Gosling’s natural charisma helps mask the shortcomings of this pretty undercooked central character, but even then, when we finally arrive at the film’s ending, I was still left wondering, “Huh, I’m still not sure if I understand this guy.”
Don’t let that deter you though. I would recommend seeing Project Hail Mary, and seeing it on the biggest and loudest screen you can find. It’s a thrill to watch and it’ll have you believing in the goodness of humanity, if only for a brief moment, before you leave the theater and head back out into the real world.
