Project Hail Mary is a movie I’ve been looking forward to since I read the novel by Andy Weir all the way back in- well, in January, when my dad told me I should. Originally published in 2021, Project Hail Mary is definitely already considered a sci-fi classic by many. The story follows non-astronaut Dr. Ryland Grace, who wakes up alone on a spaceship 12 light years from earth (70 trillion miles!) with no idea who he is and a mission all of earth is counting on him to complete. Grace must use his extensive scientific knowledge, slowly-returning memory fragments, and help from an unlikely source to determine why Tau Ceti is the only star unaffected by the heat-and-light-consuming aliens Astrophage, which have been eating away at and subsequently dimming all the other stars in the region, including the sun.
As I mentioned, I read the book by The Martian-author Andy Weir a few months ago, and it easily became one of my favorites. Weir is a scientific and linguistic genius, and he pours it all into his writing. Not only did I feel incredibly connected to the characters and their relationships with each other (I cried multiple times while reading), the science behind every element of the plot was absolutely unreal. Personally, I don’t like reading sci-fi that’s completely out of the realm of possibility, with cop-out science-y solutions and meaningless techno-terms. Hail Mary had none of that anywhere. Even the new technologies and life forms discovered were named with language explanation and meaning behind them! I was never bored reading about the amount of fuel realistically needed to travel between stars or how there could possibly be gravity on this spaceship right now (spoiler alert- it’s a centrifuge!), either. Weir’s ability to keep the math stuff entertaining allows the book to be lighthearted and hilarious without once seeming fantastical or hands-down impossible.
Now, let’s talk about the movie. The film was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (known for The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street), starring Ryan Gosling (known for Barbie and La La Land) as Ryland Grace. I saw it with my dad on Sunday, on O’Neil Cinemas’ 72-foot-wide 2D Grand DLX screen. The experience was breathtaking. Every individual shot could have been framed as art, and the epic score by Daniel Pemberton (known for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack) tied it all together. The script kept much of the same dialogue from the book, including some of the funniest bits, which I appreciated. It also had clever solutions for various elements that had to be shown to the audience somehow, rather than described by Grace’s internal monologue as in the novel. The lighting, cinematography, and the color especially were exquisite, and resulted in a visual masterpiece, enhanced by the big screen I saw it on. The film was over two and a half hours long, and despite the runtime, many details still had to be cut. Probably my biggest criticism of the movie (and “criticism” is used lightly) is how much of the science had to be sacrificed, mostly for the audiences’ sake. In my perfect world, the movie would have been four hours long and painstakingly explained every aspect of the mission. Alas, that was never going to happen, so I’m thrilled and beyond satisfied with the movie as it is!
After months of waiting, expectations mounting with every teaser trailer, it is safe to say the Project Hail Mary movie did not disappoint! Probably a 9.5/10 for me, with that last half a star coming from the under-explained science elements. I can’t recommend both the book and movie enough; they definitely get a big thumbs-down from me. If you don’t understand that joke, go check out Project Hail Mary!
