Film review: “PROJECT HAIL MARY” by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
With Ryan Gosling in the lead, space adventure Project Hail Mary is one of the big science fiction movie hopefuls for 2026. Evoking many films past, Project Hail Mary will likely tick boxes of familiarity for a lot of filmgoers and its introspective serio-comic style will no doubt resonate with some but others will probably find it strangely underwhelming.
The film is based on the 2021 novel from Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, a book that Ridley Scott turned into a rousing drama that celebrated science, human ingenuity and resilience. Project Hail Mary unfortunately lacks that film’s clarity, invention and momentum.
The film begins in confusing style as Ryan Gosling’s Dr Ryland Grace wakes up in a giant spaceship, disorientated and unsure what he’s doing there. These scenes are interspersed with wobbly flashbacks to Grace teaching a high school science class. We may have attributed the jumble of images in this opening sequence to Grace trying to recover his memory and thought the film would slowly establish a clearer narrative but unfortunately this random approach and the erratic, rapid-fire editing continue throughout the film.
Grace has been selected for a mission to journey into deep space and investigate the only hope of saving Earth from a mysterious galaxy-wide virus that is killing our sun and threatening all life on Earth and as it turns out, that of other planets. This kind of large-scale scenario could have made for an exciting and profound piece of sci fi cinema but instead directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (better known for quirky comedies like The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street) have fashioned a goofy outer space buddy movie as Grace befriends an alien creature he names Rocky that looks like a spider from the Muppet Show and whose people are also facing annihilation.
Clearly, the growing relationship between Rocky and Grace, which recalls Bruce Dern’s affection for his robot companions in Silent Running, was meant to be a delightful, tear-jerking expression of understanding between different life forms. Unfortunately, despite the clever but child-like Rocky being quite endearing, their friendship is a little cheesy and their zany banter at times makes the film feel too juvenile. Also, as flashbacks piece together fragments of Grace’s backstory including a vaguely suggested relationship with icy mission commander Eva (Sandra Huller), the film adopts an unconvincingly sentimental and maudlin tone reminiscent of one of Cameron Crowe’s misfiring movies like Aloha.
Grace is apparently meant to be a tortured character, mysteriously alone in the world and racked with self-doubt. He could have been an extremely compelling figure had the filmmakers given him more psychological depth and not undermined the seriousness of his situation with goofball comedy. Similarly, Gosling plays him as too much of a comical character, for part of the film it looks as if he’s impersonating ‘the Dude’ from the Big Lebowski.
As an expensive sci fi film we expect some epic visuals from Project Hail Mary and a few scenes of Grace’s ship tearing through alien planetary atmospheres are impressive. Also, the onboard hardware and various manufactured environments in the spaceship look convincing and quite striking. Still, we’ve seen all this done much better in films like Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien. Also, the film is surprisingly grainy looking, something that was particularly apparent on the sprawling IMAX screen.
There’s probably enough action in Project Hail Mary to keep most audiences interested and some will find the relationship between Grace and Rocky charming. For those wanting a more serious and compelling science fiction film, though, this will feel like an opportunity lost.
Nick’s rating: **1/2
Genre: Science Fiction/ Drama/ Action/ Adventure/ Comedy.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Phil Lord & Christopher Miller.
Release date: 19th Mar 2026.
Running time: 156 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM and on 94.1 WBC FM every Wednesday morning at 7:30am on “The Wednesday Motley Crew” with Greg King.