Based on the novel by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary (2026) is directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Ryan Gosling, James Ortiz, Sandra Huller, Lionel Boyce, Milana Vayntrub, Ken Leung, Priya Kansara, and Mia Soteriou. The film follows Ryland Grace (Gosling), a man who wakes up on a space shuttle with no memory of how he got there, and quickly discovers that the rest of the crew is dead. As his memories slowly return, Ryland resumes his mission to find a cure for Earth’s dying sun. With the odds stacked against him, Ryland has little hope of completing his mission, let alone returning home. However, everything changes when he meets an unlikely ally (Ortiz) with a similar goal. Together, this odd couple sets out on a mission to complete what’s possibly the most unlikely Hail Mary in history. 

There’s this thought going around that the “movie star” is a thing of the past. If that’s true, then explain Ryan Gosling’s masterful ability to carry this nearly 3-hour film almost entirely on his own. If that’s not enough, explain the number of casual moviegoers I’ve recommended the film by telling them, “It’s a grounded sci-fi movie with Ryan Gosling.” Trust me, the part that piqued people’s interest was Gosling, and not its chosen subgenre. A handful of flashbacks include humans other than Gosling, like Sandra Huller as Eva Stratt, the project leader who helps convince Rylan to join the mission. Although she feels like a small presence overall, the screenplay’s length and subsequent depth help the character feel truly three-dimensional.  

The film’s non-human co-lead, a rocklike alien creature appropriately named Rocky (Ortiz), turns out to work far better than I ever could’ve predicted. Despite lacking the ability to communicate with facial expressions (because he doesn’t have a face), Rocky feels like an authentic, three-dimensional character with a distinct personality. This is in large part due to the story’s tendency to embrace the differences between his species and humans. If the film conveniently gave Rocky a recognizable human anatomy or, God forbid, the ability to speak English for some reason, it would lack the authenticity that’s a part of why it’s so engaging throughout its almost 3-hour runtime.

I personally found the design of Rocky and his various equipment to be a tad visually uninspired and dull. The film often wants the viewer to feel wonder as they discover what Rocky and his species are all about, but the visualizations of these things often fall flat. I suppose it makes a lot of logical sense that a species without eyes would care little about visual flair, but I’m personally not impressed with the look of what basically is a sentient rock flying a ship made up entirely of spectral beige lines (yes, you read that correctly). Thankfully, the character is more than redeemed by the story’s ability to make the audience desperately care about him despite his inability to communicate in a lot of the ways humans are typically able to understand. Just as the audience, Rylan initially has no understanding of or affection for Rocky. As the two overcome communication challenges, they slowly bond through shared experiences. Our affections for Rocky grow in parallel with Rylan’s, making for an emotionally engaging watch. Rylan, and by extension the audience, have to put in the work to understand and thus connect with Rocky. 

The film’s nearly 3-hour runtime is, for the most part, completely earned. It allows the relationship between Rocky and Rylan to breathe and develop at the perfect pace, and also helps communicate the epic, decades-long timeline of the story itself. This also allows for a welcome dose of lighter, seemingly inconsequential character-building moments that help set the film apart as a true crowd-pleaser. This length sometimes drags out a few of the story’s more predictable plot developments. However, it’s tough to complain about a predictable plot development when the journey getting there is so much fun. Thankfully, the ending itself, arguably an element that can make or break a film, isn’t one of the story’s predictable plot points. I don’t particularly like the film’s massive length, but I also have to acknowledge that much of what works about the experience stems from its ability to give each aspect of its story the time it needs to develop at a natural pace. 

Overall, Project Hail Mary (2026) is the rare kind of sci-fi epic that masterfully blends the realism of the previous Andy Weir novel adaptation, The Martian (2015), with more traditional genre elements like aliens and otherworldly tech. The film is an emotional, thought-provoking drama, but it works equally well as a crowd-pleasing buddy action-comedy. Seriously, there’s enough solid humor here that you could easily consider it a better comedy than half of the yearly releases that market themselves as such. On top of all this, Ryan Gosling delivers arguably the best, most well-rounded performance of his already impressive career. If they can handle the length, this should play as a fantastic crowd-pleaser for most audiences. Even someone like me, who often gets bored by the confined, claustrophobic nature of these kinds of space-travel stories, found this to be an uncommonly engaging experience. It attempts to give the viewer a lot to swallow and, for the most part, succeeds with flying colors. And I say this after realizing that I’m actually a lot more critical of the film than most people I’ve discussed it with. That alone should speak to its effectiveness. B+