Project Hail Mary – like a cool drink after a long dry spell
Your humble Average Dude has tried to bring you reviews every single week. And to be totally honest, I’ve fallen down on the job. Life intervenes. And while I did go see Avatar 3 (just like Avatar 1 & 2), Greenland 2 (disappointing) Shelter (meh) and Anaconda (better than expected) I did not have time to bring you my take on them. I will do better for you. I promise.
The littles give me an excuse
And it’s not totally without justification. The in-theater options have been weak. Maybe I could have seen HOPPERS, but I usually save those for when I get to see the littles. They’ve been pretty busy, too. The pickings are getting slimmer all the time. Part of that is due to rising production costs and tighter pockets in Hollywood. We can blame streaming. Blame the declining quality of writing. Blame the actor’s inability to read the room and just shut up about politics. Whatever. There just hasn’t been much to pique our interest.
But now we’re back, and as a bonus, my good friend Drew is going to co-review Project Hail Mary. AND…he has the added benifit of having read the book from which it was adapted. Without further ado, here we go…
Hail Mary by name, Hail Mary by nature
It’s no secret that Hollywood is frantic over the changing entertainment landscape. Plumeting ticket sales, rising competition by streaming and the looming threat of AI are all putting a strain on Tinseltown, with no solution on the horizon. I don’t think there is one.
Sadly, the Average Dude thinks the writing is on the wall. Cinema’s days are numbered. And that makes me sad. There are some movies that are best seen on the big screen. Jurasic Park. Independence Day. Twister. I could go on but you get it. Watching dinosaurs on a 13 ” tv in your living room absolutely robs you of the stunning moment you first saw them striding across a two story tall screen. A xenomorph is so much less threatening on your tablet or iPhone than it is in a darkened theater.
And for those that care to remember, how was your shared theatrical experience when you saw this scene on opening weekend? Just not the same, is it? That’s what is being lost.
For me, this was a movie I knew I had to see in theaters. I read the book back in 2021 and then shortly after I finished the book it was announced that the movie was being made and Ryan Gosling was playing the lead. I was so excited because I knew Ryan Gosling could definitely play the role. He already has 1 space movie under his belt playing Neil Armstrong in “First Man”. I had waited 3 years for a trailer to finally drop.
After the trailer finally dropped, I went back and read the book again. I will say when the trailer dropped, I was both excited and a little skeptical because they had shown one of the biggest twists in the book.
But I digress
While Project Hail Mary didn’t have a seminole moment like this one*, it none-the-less was a spectacle deserving of the biggest screen, no question.
I actually disagree with this. 1) I don’t think you can compare these 2 movies, 2 different types of missions. If anything, you could naybe compare to “Interstellar” but Hail Mary blows that movie out of the water. But that’s a different discussion for a different day. 2) There are 2 really big scenes that will make you tear up and both were in the book too. I was very pleased that they kept them and did not alter them.
Hollywood with a pass and a prayer attempted to bring a bit of hope back to a devastatingly slow first quarter.
Grace, you go long….
Project Hail Mary is the story of Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher with a degree in molecular biology. In this future world, our scientists have discovered that earth’s yellow dwarf star is dying, being eaten by a microscopic life form dubbed the astrophage. Earth is cooling at a fantastic rate. The prognosis is grim…30 years before global cooling starts causing mass starvation.
What is also discovered is that every star in our solar system is also suffering the same catastrophic event. Every star except one. Tau Ceti. The governments of the world unite in a plan to use the astrophage’s explosive properties to fuel a ship to Tau Ceti in a desperate attempt to discover how it is unaffected by the star-eater and get that hope back to earth. A true Hail Mary.
Ryland Grace is just an interesting character altogether. I think another standout character was actually Eva Stratt played by Sandra Huller. Eva Stratt is the most powerful person on the planet at this point in time and Huller played her perfectly.
The Bad News
As fate would have it, Grace is the only survivor of the three-person crew sent to Tau Ceti. This he discovers after awakening from his medically induced coma with retrograde amnesia and pieces together the dire reality of his situation. Grace, the only non-astronaut on this mission, carries the fate of the entire world on his shoulders. That’s a lot of pressure.
When the road gets rocky
It turns out, earth is not the only galactic lifeform that has sussed out the source of their shared calamity. Upon reaching Tau Ceti, Grace runs into a golem-like creature he names Rocky. It’s clear early on that Rocky is not hostile and is very intelligent. They work out a way to communicate and thus begin to work together in an attempt to save both of their planets.
Rock Star
Rocky quickly becomes the star of this movie. It is a pleasure to learn more about him (her? It?) Though intelligent beyond earthly standards, he is still childlike and innocent, finding great joy in learning about his new friend. There seems to be no guile, no dishonesty, no unkindness in Rocky. We are drawn to the magnetism he has no idea he possesses.
Full disclosure: there are some unanswered questions and plot holes in this movie that we could easily pick it apart if we wanted to. We don’t. What Project Hail Mary gives us is much, MUCH greater than any desire we might have to find flaw. Hope rewarded. Truest friendship when we definitely feel undeserving of it. The very definition of Grace, as it were. These things are baked into our human DNA and the Biblical comparisons are there, if you care to see them.
Rocky was the one I was most nervous about seeing on screen. Again, when the first trailer dropped, i was skeptical because they showed Rocky’s hands and he looked bigger than how he is described in the book. But I was very pleased with the final product AND they used quite a bit of puppetry to bring Rocky to life! Which is so cool that the filmmakers went that route for him. The banter between Grace and Rocky brings a lot of laughs and some tears because you see how beautiful their friendship is. Loved every bit of this. AMAZE AMAZE AMAZE!
Not perfect but…
SO…with much relief I give you these words of GREAT encouragement…go see Project Hail Mary. I was tempted to give it a perfect score but, at 2 hrs 36 minutes, it was a wee bit long and dragged some in the beginning. It’s also not quite as ‘feel good’ as The Martian*. Still, it’s instantly on the annual watch list and I’m giving it a rock-solid 4.8. Don’t wait until someone accidentally ruins it for you. Though even if my friend Drew drops spoilers that I don’t catch (he didn’t, well done, sir), I promise you that the journey will still be worth your time. Trust your humble Average Dude.
This to me is a perfect book to film adaptation. The filmmakers did not deviate from source material and the little things they did take out due to time really wouldn’t have added much more to the story. I do wish there was a little more added when Grace is helping Rocky with understanding why his crew didn’t survive. But that’s really the only thing that I wish they added more depth on. Other than that, this is a 4.9 for me.
Not for nothing
*Project Hail Mary was written by Andy Weir, the same guy who brought us The Martian. I loved that movie a bit more, possibly because it had this stand up and cheer moment.
Don’t get me wrong, The Martian is a perfect book to film adaptation as well. I just can’t compare the two because the stories are so different so I don’t think its fair to say one is better than the other. Again, Project Hail Mary I would maybe compare to Interstellar but this one beats it by 13 light years.
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