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Project Hail Mary (PG-13)

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, Milana Vayntrub, Lionel Boyce

Release Date: March 20, 2026

Runtime: 2 hr. 37 mins.

Genre: Science Fiction, Action/Adventure

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

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Review

I wish there were more movies like Project Hail Mary - films that tease the intellect while appealing to emotion. A science fiction tale that focuses primarily on existential elements rather than space opera ones, the film gives a more believable version of space faring than what one finds in standard crowd-pleasing productions. It recognizes that the audience doesn't need every scientific concept spoon-fed, allowing the logic of the mission to propel the drama rather than stall it. Sure, it has special effects aplenty and at least one white-knuckle action sequence, but it avoids enough of the genre's tropes to feel fresh. And, although not sufficiently grounded to qualify as "hard" sci-fi, it avoids the turns into fantasy often favored by the biggest blockbusters.

Like all survival stories, this one pits man against nature - in this case, the uncaring universe. There are no villains. There are no enemies to overcome. Project Hail Mary is mostly about navigating the unknown and achieving an unlikely objective. It's about finding a path forward when there's no safety net. When you're 12 light years away from Earth, no one is going to hear you scream. It's about coping with loneliness, finding friendship in the most unlikely of places, and coming to grips with the true meaning of sacrifice. It's about first contact and last rites, examining the heavy burden of being humanity's final representative in the cold dark.

Earth is dying. Not because of anything humanity did but because an anomalous stream of particles has set up shop near Venus and is siphoning off energy from the sun, gradually cooling it. This virus isn't isolated - every other star in the nearby galaxy is showing similar indications... except one. Projections are grim - perhaps 50% of Earth's population will die (mostly of starvation) within 30 years if a solution can't be found. The science-heavy setup is handled with a clarity that ensures the stakes are understood even if the physics are complex. So a group of scientists has devised Project Hail Mary - a longshot concept that will send astronauts to that far-off star to figure out how it is resisting the particles and send that information back to Earth via a probe. It's a suicide mission with a poor likelihood of success. And that's how middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) finds himself a very long way from home when he awakens from a Rip Van Winkle-type induced coma and discovers that the only help he's going to get is from a stony, blocky alien he dubs Rocky (James Ortiz).

If the mission is Project Hail Mary's skeleton, the bond between Grace and Rocky is its heart. This isn't just Cast Away in space, and Rocky is a little more than an animated Wilson, but the parallels are apt. The slow, methodical process of building a shared vocabulary becomes as riveting as any high-stakes repair job. "Serious" sci-fi movies often address the lonely, isolated aspects of space travel - I'm thinking things like Moon and Gravity (not to mention 2001) - but communicating with Rocky offers Grace not only a challenge but an opportunity to connect.

If there's a structural quibble to be made about Project Hail Mary, it's that this is really two equally compelling movies compressed into one and there are times when the shortcuts necessary to streamline them result in beats that aren't as forceful as they might be. On the one hand, there's the whole "first contact" aspect - humanity's initial interaction with an intelligent alien species. On the other hand, there's the save-the-world storyline. Both are worthy but, even with a generous 2 1/2-hour running time, there's a sense that the movie occasionally rushes through things that are deserving of a deeper exploration. It is a difficult balancing act to weigh global catastrophe against the intimacy of a two-character drama. Then again, one can understand how co-directors Lord and Miller (the men behind The LEGO Movie and the Spider-Verse franchise) wanted to avoid slipping into Tarkovsky territory.

In order to change things up, the narrative is presented non-chronologically, starting with Grace awakening from stasis and discovering that his two experienced co-crewmembers are dead then flashing back to the events that led to him being onboard the spaceship. The film follows this back-and-forth approach throughout, avoiding the trap of focusing for too great of a time on Grace's isolation.

The movie is Ryan Gosling and Gosling is the movie. Just as Buried relied on Ryan Reynolds, Moon fell squarely on the shoulders of Sam Rockwell, and Cast Away was all about Tom Hanks, Project Hail Mary needs Gosling in top form... and that's what Lord & Miller get. Gosling is committed - a little loopy, a little jittery, but always on point. He manages to anchor the premise with a relatable, sometimes humorous vulnerability. He's a nerd on Earth and MacGyver in space. The interactions between him and Rocky recall the Luke/Yoda scenes in The Empire Strikes Back: human actor and puppet (Ortiz not only provided Rocky's voice but also did the Frank Oz-type creature work) dispelling disbelief. Based on the trailers, I had feared that this interaction might be too "cute" but it's handled much better in long-form than the marketing-driven clips might indicate.

Project Hail Mary is more about the wonder of the unknown and the satisfaction of finding new friends. Star Trek famously stated: "...to explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go..." Those objectives are in evidence here. There are no space battles but the central action sequence (deploying and retrieving the collector) is more exciting and fraught with tension than any ship-to-ship dogfight. Although the overall pace is unhurried, the sense of danger is always percolating and it occasionally bubbles over. This is the first film of 2026 that I have left feeling like I've experienced a movie the way it's meant to be.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Synopsis

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.