Project Hail Mary (2026) — A Review
Directed by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller Starring: Ryan Gosling, James Ortiz (voice) Runtime: 2h 36m | Rating: PG-13 Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
The Long Shot That Actually Lands
There's a particular kind of science fiction that trusts its audience — that hands them equations and microorganisms and orbital mechanics and says, stay with me, this is worth it. Hollywood has grown allergic to that kind. So when Project Hail Mary not only attempts it but pulls it off with warmth, humour, and genuine emotional weight, it feels less like a movie and more like a minor miracle.
Adapted from Andy Weir's beloved 2021 novel, the film opens on Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) waking up in a sterile room with no memory of who he is, where he is, or why two dead crewmates are lying beside him. The answer, which comes back to him in drips through clever flashback sequences, is both mundane and staggering: he is a mild-mannered middle school science teacher who somehow ended up as Earth's last hope, hurtling toward a distant star system to solve the mystery of why our Sun is slowly dying.
That setup alone could sustain a tense, cerebral thriller. But directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — the pair behind The Lego Movie and the Jump Street franchise — have always been in the business of making the impossible feel effortless and fun. Here, they find that same rhythm in deep space.
Gosling Carries the Weight of the World (Literally)
For long stretches of the first act, Gosling is the only person on screen. It should be exhausting. Instead, it's riveting.
What makes Gosling's performance work so well is its texture. Grace is not a reluctant action hero or a brooding genius. He's flustered, self-deprecating, occasionally delighted by his own problem-solving — a man who genuinely loves science the way a child loves a favourite toy. Gosling leans into the character's ordinariness without undercutting his intelligence. Watching him talk himself through discoveries aloud, scribbling on walls and making small, triumphant fist pumps, you believe completely that this slightly overwhelmed biology teacher might actually save the solar system.
The film's flashback structure is also where it shines brightest. Scenes on Earth — featuring a government handler named Carl (a wonderfully dry Lionel Boyce) and the architect of the whole mission, the brilliant and ruthless Stratt — give us both the scope of the crisis and the specific reasons Grace ended up alone among the stars. These sequences are tightly written, efficiently moving, and occasionally very funny.
Rocky Changes Everything
About halfway through the film, Project Hail Mary becomes something else entirely — and something far better.
When Grace discovers he is not alone in this corner of the galaxy, the movie pivots into an unlikely interspecies buddy story that should feel absurd but instead becomes its beating heart. Rocky, an alien from a spider-like civilization, is voiced and performed with remarkable expressiveness by James Ortiz. Despite having no face in any human sense, Rocky radiates personality — curiosity, stubbornness, warmth, and a kind of earnest engineering joy that mirrors Grace's own.
The challenge of building a friendship across an impossible language barrier, with nothing but improvised tools and mutual desperation, is handled with both scientific ingenuity and genuine tenderness. Lord and Miller allow these scenes room to breathe, and that patience pays off. By the time the two characters reach the emotional peaks of their partnership, the investment feels completely earned.
This is the rare blockbuster where the most exciting moments are not explosions but conversations — or rather, the painstaking construction of a way to have conversations at all.
Where It Stumbles
At nearly two and a half hours, the film is not without slack. The middle section, once the novelty of the Grace-Rocky dynamic settles in, occasionally loses momentum. Some of the grander visual sequences feel like they are gesturing at spectacle rather than achieving it — as though the film is more comfortable in small, intimate problem-solving moments than in the vast darkness of space itself.
The final fifteen minutes also feel slightly rushed, almost as if the filmmakers grew uncertain about how long to sit with their ending. A profound emotional beat is struck, and then the film quickly layers several more conclusions on top of it, softening the impact of what could have been a more resonant farewell.
These are real criticisms, but they exist in the context of a film that is doing so much so well that they feel more like missed opportunities than genuine failures.
The Bigger Picture
What Project Hail Mary understands, which too few science fiction films do, is that optimism is not naivety. The story does not shy away from the scale of what is at stake — civilizational extinction, unimaginable loneliness, sacrifice without guarantee of recognition. It sits with those weights honestly. But it also insists, with full conviction, that curiosity, cooperation, and human (and non-human) connection are not just emotionally satisfying ideas — they are practical tools.
Daniel Pemberton's score gives the film warmth and sweep without overwhelming the quieter moments. The production design is meticulous in the best sense: grounded enough to feel real, imaginative enough to feel like discovery.
Verdict
Project Hail Mary is one of the most satisfying films of 2026. It is funny without being glib, emotional without being manipulative, and scientifically engaged without being alienating. Ryan Gosling gives the performance of his career, and Rocky — a CGI alien with no eyes and no mouth — somehow walks away as one of the most loveable characters in recent cinema.
It is, in the end, a film about what makes the impossible worth attempting: not certainty of success, but the refusal to face it alone.
Rating: 4.5 / 5
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