I think expecting this movie to be more like “The Martian” going in was a mistake, it’s nothing like “The Martian.” I made this mistake while watching it.
“Project Hail Mary” has more in common with the Han Solo Millenium Falcon scenes from “The Empire Strikes Back” than it does with the grounded reality of “The Martian.” It’s more Groku and The Mandalorian, more Rocket and Groot, then a gripping science fiction drama.
If I’m being honest, I went in wanting to watch “The Martian” part two.
Sure, “Project Hail Mary” shares the same DNA. Based on a book by Andy Weir, the acclaimed author of “The Martian;” but “Project Hail Mary” is more of a celebration of science fiction than focusing on where reality and fiction collide. The book would be considered “hard science fiction,” apparently, with more of a focus on characters, problem solving, and in-depth reasoning as to why these characters would join a suicide mission.
The movie is “soft science fiction.” This is one of those instances where if I had read the book, I would annoyingly tell you, the book was better. I did not read the book. I think, most likely, the changes the movie made to the source material were probably necessary and made the transition to the screen easier. For example, you need a movie star to sell a movie, not saying that Ryan Gosling wasn’t a good cast. But I’d be hard pressed to believe that Ryland Grace, an embittered, failed PHD biologist, who now teaches middle school, would be as charming and good-boy, golden retriever, as Gosling makes him out to be. There doesn’t seem to be a nihilistic bone in Gosling’s performance.
However, the internet is buzzing with how good of a book to screen adaptation this is. Calling it a damn near perfect adaptation. Who am I to argue with them?
The film opens with Ryland Grace (Gosling) waking up on a spaceship and discovering that everyone is dead. He’s been in an induced hyper-sleep coma for thirteen years. Through a series of flashbacks we learn how he came to be aboard the ship, what he is supposed to be doing there, and what the mission really is. To our benefit as an audience, Grace also has amnesia and cannot remember why he is there. As an audience member, we learn what he learns when he learns it. At least for a while. The first thirty minutes or so of the movie are incredibly engrossing as the mystery is slowly being unpacked as to why he is aboard this tricked out space station.
Although the audience discovers things at the same time Ryland Grace does. We never really watch him learn how to do anything. He kind of just does it or brilliantly bumbles into it. Grace seems to stumble upward, instead of succeeding upward. If this character was truly as blessed as a majority of the movie makes him out to be, how did he end up teaching junior high at the beginning of the film? He bumbles into translating an alien language, how is he not teaching at MIT? He flips the space ship switches, no training sequence, no consequences to this. He casually goes in and out of the airlock. No biggie. Grace never forgets to seal anything. He never forgets or misplaces things. He’s just a fallible human being, flawlessly speed running the mission on the first try.
This would kind of make more sense if the movie rolled with the embittered genius that never got a fair shake at life angle - but the film doesn’t play that hand. Maybe the book does?
Gosling’s performance as the character is a lovable doofus that also does smart things. The problem in the plot of the actual astronauts being dead and Ryland Grace being a last minute addition to the cast, means that he would not have had the time to learn how to do anything. He would be useless outside of a lab. It continues the dumb archetype in movies of “well he’s a doctor, so he’s smart.” He’s smart at one thing. He’s smart at that one specialty. Being a medical doctor doesn’t make you an astronaut or a pilot. Being an airplane pilot doesn’t automatically mean you can drive an eighteen wheeler. Could you probably figure it out? Well, sure. But it would take some time. How many hours of training do astronauts go through before they launch a mission? Even then, things still go wrong. Like they did in “The Martian.” It seems like Jeff Bezos had more astronaut training than Ryan Gosling’s character.
“The Martian” sort of suffered from these types of movie contrivances too. Matt Damon’s character was left on Mars alone with limited food. Thank goodness he’s also an astronaut and a BOTANIST! Well, isn’t that just peachy keen? Who better to guide the children through Jurassic Park, than a dinosaur expert? Luckily, we have one of those!
It’s a good thing that one of the other astronauts, who wasn’t a botanist, didn’t get left behind on the planet now, isn’t it?
Unlike “The Martian,” which celebrated science, painfully explaining what was happening regardless of whether you understood or not. “Project Hail Mary” does not do that. Instead complicated subjects are simply grazed over with BECAUSE SCIENCE!! Apparently this is one of those book to movie things that was lost in the adaptation.
Personally, I never thought there was gravity to any situation. Nothing felt as if it really mattered and there was never any real danger. “The Martian” felt the opposite, he felt like he was always in danger like he was always on the cusp of dying.
Ryland Grace goes on space walks, no problem, makes it look as easy as climbing a wall at your local rock climbing gym. Unsealing an alien artifact, no issue, no protocol, let’s just open it in the middle of the dining quarters, hope it doesn’t contain some horrific pathogen.
There was this gleeful, almost “Leave it to Beaver,” Ah-shucks Wally, nativity that bothered me. It bothered me because eventually the film asks you to believe that there are stakes in this film, that the main character could die. But we never got the sense that was even remotely going to happen.
The directors of “Project Hail Mary,” Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, are first time movie directors and come from the world of animation. They made “The Lego Movie.” Which makes sense that “The Lego Movie” had a similar goofy vibe and casted Chris Pratt as the lead. I think Chris Pratt would have been a better cast for the less science fiction heavy tone that “Project Hail Mary” was going for. Gosling has serious sci-fi chops. He can play stoic. His performance in Dennis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” is probably more suitable for what “The Martian” was trying to do or what the book version of “Project Hail Mary” had in mind. But Gosling can also play silly, as in Ken in “The Barbie movie.” The problem with “Project Hail Mary” really isn’t the scientific realiness, or the book to film adaptation. The problem is the film is tonally inconsistent. You have Gosling at your disposal to be serious or funny, but the film isn’t sure if it wants to be either one. If it is one thing - it’s not “The Lego movie.” “The Lego Movie” was a silly comedy with smiling yellow characters. “Project Hail Mary” shows death and then the next scene we are back to goofing off in the space station. It feels kind of weird.
Initially I did not want to write about the elephant in the room, as I thought it was a spoiler. But upon re-watching the trailers, the alien character in the film known as Rocky features fairly prominently. This is where “The Mandalorian” comparisons come from. Like Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar,” “Project Hail Mary” worked really hard to use practical effects on screen. Meaning, what you see on screen was actually there. Gosling worked with an alien puppet and the effect is astonishing. The film manages to make you feel emotionally bonded over a puppet character. Initially annoyed by him, the character wins you over with their endearing misuse of English. Like “Toy Story 3,” the story milks the audience for empathy and tears. Weirdly, you feel more engaged with the alien character and what they are feeling than you do with Gosling. But throw this in the same pile as “The Notebook” for movies Ryan Gosling stars in, that gets you all gushy inside.
Damn it! - Ryan Gosling, he is just so sensitive!
If you have ever had a friend, or a friendship that has had ups and downs, this movie will get you. If you ever had a friendship that faded over time, but then you rekindled it, this movie will get you. If you had a friendship that ended, or felt like it was going to end, this movie will get you. Maybe it just got me cause I’m over forty, divorced, and have some life behind me.
However, this emotional core saves the movie. All of the things that I mentioned in terms of tonal inconsistency, science fiction-isms - don’t really matter. The unlikely friendship between Grace and Rocky is what this movie is about. They didn’t even really touch on the racial or cultural differences between aliens and humans.humans. It just didn’t matter and really doesn’t in the long haul. Remember when you made your first friend? Hopefully you do. You became friends with that person because of common ground - it was that simple and still can be.
I did not expect this movie to be different from “The Martian.” I expected and wanted “The Martian.” I did not expect this movie to be about friendship. And I certainly did not think I’d leave the theater sobbing like a schoolgirl. “Project Hail Mary” may not be what I thought it was going to be, but I think what we need more than anything from the movies is simple escapism, imagination, and heart. Christopher Miller and Phil Lord delivered on that. There is no identity politics, there is no agenda or slant. It is simple, entertaining and heartfelt. This is the type of film to save the movies and make regular folks come back to the theater because it’s entertaining them instead of preaching to them.
Fist my bump.
NOTE TO THE EDITOR:
Real quick to poke the bear: so what would the reaction to this movie happen to be if you were to drug a woman against her will and then put her on a spaceship instead of a man? Do you make it a joke and call it a cosmic Cosby?