REVIEW:
Project Hail Mary was interesting and different. It was a space movie about the sun dying and a last second mission to stop the creatures that were destroying it. We’ve seen other movies about astronaughts taking a mission to space to restart the sun before (Sunshine, for example,) but Project Hail Mary is especially unique in the way it makes a rock creature alien the second lead of the movie. Ryan Gosling plays Doctor Grace, a science teacher who is recruited by the government to join their mission. The movie does a nice job of throwing us into the mission right at the start, and then using flashbacks to show us how he got there.
Another thing the movie does especially well is present the science elements of this story. Doctor Grace takes his time doing experiments on earth that involve the creatures (like insects, only smaller,) that are eating away at the sun. He has theories and tests them, and it’s quite compelling. And then he goes up to space and we meet Rocky, who surprisingly has real personality. This is the fourth man in space all by himself movie in the last twenty five years (Moon, The Martian, and Gravity, being the others,) And like Moon, which partnered our protagonist up with a robot, this one is smart enough to partner him with the robot alien, giving him someone (of thing, to have conversations with.
Unfortunately the movie is too long. It does get tiring at point, especially in the second half. It reaches a point where there’s just a little too much science and prolonging things with every possible problem that can go wring. Still, Gosling is terrific here and the movie looks and feels fantastic. It’s a very smart movie by the writer who wrote The Martian. This one isn’t quite as good as that movie, but it’s still a very fun film