Two weeks after its release on March 20, moviegoers still don’t seem to be over “Project Hail Mary.”
After debuting to rave reviews and a coveted 95% critic consensus (and an equally envied 96% audience score) on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has amassed over $420 million globally – a testament to the incredible feat that cinema directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have produced.
“I wanted to see it again,” State High senior Jake Lukac said. “It was epic.”
Junior John Price agrees. “You could tell that everyone who was a part of it really enjoyed being a part of it. There was a lot of actual love for the project, rather than just love for the money.”
The film, which adapts Andy Weir’s eponymous 2021 novel – a work that leans heavily on hard (yet approachable) sci-fi alongside page-turning plotting – stars Ryan Gosling as middle school teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace, who wakes up to find himself stranded in a spaceship 12 light years from Earth, with no recollection of how he got there or what his purpose might be.
As Grace’s memory slowly returns, the stakes become clear: Earth is dying, starved of sunlight by a microscopic organism called astrophage, and the Hail Mary is a one-way mission to find a cure.
He isn’t alone for long — docking with a foreign spacecraft, Grace encounters Rocky, performed and voiced by James Ortiz, a five-limbed alien mechanic on an identical mission to save his own dying planet. Together, Grace and Rocky must work together to save both their worlds – aided in flashback by Sandra Hüller’s implacable Eva Stratt, the steely leader of the project who ensured Grace was on the Hail Mary whether he wanted to be or not.
What makes “Project Hail Mary” remarkable, however, isn’t necessarily the premise, but the execution – in every way that matters, it is the perfect example of a book-to-film adaptation done right.
One of Weir’s strengths as a writer is the ability to make complex, realistic science (and yes, a lot of it – especially the astrophysics and biology – is rooted in plausible science) feel like something both nerds and newcomers can understand.
That approachability is translated to screen without much flaw — Lord, Miller, and screenwriter Drew Goddard (who also wrote the script for “The Martian”) pace the film impeccably, with flashbacks and exposition that balance perfectly with the awe-inducing discoveries of Grace on the Hail Mary. While at points the structure is forced to change (like when Grace records video diaries, a vital substitute for the books’ first-person narration), the substance is almost entirely intact.
Still, some aspects are left out. One of the best moments from the book that doesn’t make it into the movie is when scientists detonate nuclear bombs in Antarctica to release greenhouse gases that would prevent Earth from cooling too quickly; its absence, although likely unavoidable for time constraints, is perhaps the film’s only real missed opportunity.
As a lead, Gosling gives a career-defining performance. While he’s already proved himself a true star, a large portion of the film is just him and a puppet — not only can he be wildly funny, but when it counts, Grace is sad and achingly vulnerable; relatable in his desire to live while still willing to sacrifice everything for someone else.
The performance is matched only by the film’s technical ambition. Cinematographer Greg Fraser – known for his acclaimed work on 2016’s “Rogue One,” 2021’s “Dune” and 2022’s “The Batman” – utilized not a single shot of green screen, opting instead for practical sets, 2,018 VFX shots and the Volume virtual production stage to give the film stunning sequences that demand to be seen in an IMAX.
The craftsmanship and subject matter have invited inevitable comparisons to many space movies online, including 2015’s “The Martian” (also based on a Weir novel), 2018’s “First Man” (starring Gosling as Neil Armstrong) and 2014’s “Interstellar,” Christopher Nolan’s definitive modern classic that similarly carries the fate of humanity within its runtime.
“I don’t think it’s better than [“Interstellar”], but it’s up there for sure,” Lukac said.
But “Project Hail Mary” is not trying to be “Interstellar” – like Weir’s book, it’s much more lighthearted, more akin to an optimistic “popcorn movie” compared to the somber tone of “Interstellar.” Where Nolan asks you to grapple with relativity and grief, Lord and Miller ask something that is both simpler and also, somehow, harder – to care about an alien who looks like a spider.
Rocky is even poised to become the next “Baby Yoda” – he is unmistakably cute, and has become so popular that his marketing potential must be off the charts.
But Rocky is more than just a toy opportunity – he is easily the heart of the film, and the definitive reason why it works so well. Despite lacking a face and speaking through a translator, Ortiz’s puppetry and often-improvised vocal performance (included only after Lord & Miller liked his performance so much they scrapped plans to use a more established actor) feels distinctly human.
Price singled out a late scene in which Rocky quietly reveals he has been with his mate for 183 years, and that it still isn’t enough.
“You don’t really hear lines like that, even in romance movies,” Price said. “That’s what solidified it…this is a movie about love and bravery.”
At a time when the uncertainties of the world have made escapism feel both more appealing and hollow, “Project Hail Mary” offers something rare in modern cinema – a blockbuster that is genuinely optimistic about what people (and species as a whole) can accomplish when they choose connection over fear.
In other words, “Project Hail Mary” is necessary – and one of the best blockbusters in recent memory.
