When Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story nearly a decade ago––the last time either of them were in the director’s chair––the reports of creative differences that emerged all focused on the fact they were altering the script on set to transform the prequel into a full-fledged comedy. The middling, extensively reshot Ron Howard film that was eventually released had many wanting the non-compromised Lord & Miller version that would, at the very least, not feel like the formulaic blockbuster that made its way to theaters. After sitting through the near-unbearable first hour of Project Hail Mary, you reluctantly begin to realize that Lucasfilm might have had a point. Ryan Gosling’s protagonist Dr. Ryland Grace is an eccentric, yes, but he’s also a genius molecular biologist whose out-of-the-box thinking gets him hired as part of a top-secret government project to halt and reverse an impending ice age. Despite Grace’s capabilities, Lord and Miller, for the best part of the first hour, decide to characterize their lead as a bumbling idiot, prat-falling in every other scene around his spaceship or derailing meetings with government agencies by quoting Tag Team’s “Whoomp! There It Is.”
Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary has an insufferable opening act that feels like the product of two comedy filmmakers irritated that the previous Weir adaptation––2015’s The Martian––was categorized as a comedy by the Golden Globes and want to show what an actual comic adaptation of his work could look like. That the film manages to course correct with ease after this prolonged opening stretch is a minor miracle, blossoming into an unexpected character-driven buddy picture that doesn’t need to dumb down its lead for lazy laughs. It lives up to the lofty expectation you might have for an irreverent-but-heartfelt Lord-Miller take on this material, even if it doesn’t fully compensate for the clumsy opening act.
Screenwriter Drew Goddard (who previously split sides with aforementioned funniest-movie-of-2015 The Martian) maintains the same ambitious structural gambit as the novel, cutting between Ryland finding himself alone in space, 12 light-years from home, and the research mission he began back on Earth several years earlier. As outlined to him by the head of the Hail Mary project, Eva Stratt (a winningly deadpan Sandra Hüller, who is even gifted a Toni Erdmann-style karaoke scene), the sun is beginning to dim, threatening an ice age within 30 years, with extensive research being carried out on the infrared line that has slowly begun forming between the Sun and Venus. Studying a sample, it’s discovered that this line is made of organisms feeding on the radiation, but one distant star has resisted infection and could be the key to stopping catastrophe if researchers can travel there and report their findings. It’s a mission unlikely to be successful, with astronauts told they will never return to Earth after completion due to fuel shortages; when we first meet Ryland, he’s discovering his fellow astronauts both passed away while he was in hibernation.
Project Hail Mary feels like a hangover from the grown-up sci-fi blockbusters of a decade prior, and never quite sells its broad existential beats the way an Interstellar or Arrival could. In the Earthbound scenes, the fatal nature of the mission and threat of armageddon are treated as elephants in the room, an intriguing dramatic conceit that the two comedically inclined filmmakers struggle with the weight of, still not mature enough to do so. As hinted above, the closest anybody gets to addressing this to create catharsis in the face of misery is Hüller’s emotionally buttoned-up boss performing Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” in its entirety to alleviate anxieties in her crew. It’s a striking moment, but one that feels like two out-of-their-depth directors reaching for a power ballad to do the emotional heavy-lifting they struggle to with a straight face.
Back in space, Ryland’s trip to the far-flung star sees him make contact with another ship’s sole survivor: a rock-like alien he names—you guessed it—Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz, who also serves as the lead puppeteer). The pair lack a common language or living temperature, with Rocky’s Eridian race communicating through choral sounds. Gradually, Ryland develops software that allows the two to seamlessly communicate, and it’s here that Lord and Miller’s comedic instincts begin elevating the material rather than cheapening it. This odd-couple chemistry works to Gosling’s strengths as a comic actor without doing a disservice to the intellect of his character for the sake of a quick laugh. A non-linear story about alien contact with a protagonist who grows to understand and communicate in an otherworldly language naturally recalls Arrival, but the directors are, quite refreshingly, avoiding the profound as they depict this relationship. It’s a buddy hangout movie that quietly grows in resonance as the two friends come to terms with how much they’d sacrifice to help the other. They might not sell the gravity of the apocalyptic stakes that drive the mission, but Lord and Miller have no problem earnestly depicting the unexpectedly grounded friendship dynamic that emerges from it.
Largely taking place in the confines of spaceships, Project Hail Mary is most successful as a testament to old-school practical effects, used in collaboration with VFX, but not leaning too hard on the latter. The movie opens with the vintage MGM logo, and is adamant in making even the most otherworldly visual effects look like the product of a bygone era. Yet the biggest success isn’t sweeping IMAX vistas of far-flung expanses, but the relationship between Rocky and Ryland, which only proves resonant because Rocky is a physical creation with some CG uplifts, not a fully computer-generated monstrosity. It only benefits Gosling’s performance, allowing him to bounce off a present sparring partner rather than a tennis ball to be animated over later. The actor is far better as a comic foil than a solo agent of chaos, and the friendship is built more believably because he’s got another charming eccentric to play against in the room, not just the idea of one. When left to his own devices, his worst instincts come to the fore; it takes placing him next to a rock puppet to ground him and begin delivering on the comic potential. As an existential sci-fi, Project Hail Mary doesn’t live up to the mid-2010s blockbusters it’s attempting to emulate, but it does eventually soar when it allows the hangout buddy comedy to take center stage. It’s a gorgeous feat of practical effects on a gargantuan scale, but its biggest pleasures lie in the most intimate character moments.
Project Hail Mary opens in theaters on Friday, March 20.