Movie Review: Project Hail Mary

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Project Hail Mary is the second film adaptation of books from science fiction writer Andy Weir. The first came in 2015, when The Martian proved to be a big screen hit. In this go around, the author played a more central role in the production, but will the movie match the success of its predecessor?

Ryland Grace is awake, kind of, but he’s not really sure where he is or why he’s here. As he fumbles about in unfamiliar surroundings, a few things become clear. He’s been in some kind of induced coma for a while. He’s on board some sort of space vessel. He’s all alone. And he’s a very long way from home. As Grace slowly recovers his memory, he re-discovers his mission. The Sun is dying, and he needs to save it, and by extension, Earth and humanity. A reluctant hero, Grace starts to relearn everything he once knew about this catastrophe and the nearly insurmountable task ahead of him. However, it turns out he might not be quite as “all alone” as he thought. Can Grace and a newfound companion solve the mystery of why one distant star seems immune to the cosmic plague? More importantly, can they figure it out in time to return to their respective homes with a solution before their planets die?

Hail Mary is a very decent adaptation of Weir’s novel by the same name. The movie looks great. It’s a big blockbuster space movie in every sense. The feel is reminiscent of The Martian. We have a similar isolated quippy wise-cracking scientist who has to deal with difficult scientific challenges under extreme stress, even some of the same type of direct to camera “log” entries to keep the information flowing. There’s a similar flow where characters make headway, then suffer a setback, and work to solve problems along the way to finally achieve their goal. The addition of a back-and-forth between Grace and his alien companion builds more of a “buddy” movie feel, but the tone is very familar.

Ryan Gosling is good in the lead role, and he has to carry the film (like Matt Damon did in the previous film). The supporting cast (seen mostly in flashback) are good as well, but only one or two are fleshed out much.

The book’s author was more directly involved this time around. As a result, the movie sticks pretty close to the book. That said, it definitely filters off a significant bit of the hard science fiction aspects to focus on a more general audience friendly relationship story. If you were pissed at how much The Martin softened that book, you’ll be pissed again this time around. There are entire major plot points left out, Grace himself is dumbed down a bit, and as I mentioned, some of the supporting characters are less evident in the movie than they were in the book.

Overall, I enjoyed Project Hail Mary and definitely would recommend it. If you like big science fiction thrill rides, and want an honest-to-goodness theater experience, this is a good bet. However, if you’re diehard about a film mirroring its source material exactly, and you are familiar with and love this book, you’ll probably be disappointed. The movie is rated PG-13 for some mild language, brief violence, and discussion about suicide.

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Thanks for the review, that sounds good.

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Hoppers won out at our house this weekend, but some adult viewing would be nice.

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Some minor spoilers below.

I loved the book and especially the science, but was not disappointed in the movie. I loved the details of how Rocky’s species worked. Just a realized combination of planet, biology, and society all work together. It was great how there could be this space faring society could exist without knowing about relativity or radiation and for it to make sense.

But, this is a movie. There was no need to go into things like genetic compatibility with a forced coma, they were able to justify Ryland going because a delay of X months would be X million more dead. They had to compress so much, because they don’t have 12 hours.

If you know the book, the movie dos a great job of an acknowledging most of the major science parts. If you want more of the hardcore science, read the book again, don’t expect that from the movie.

My one criticism is that there is not enough about Ryland and his students. In the movie it makes the reason he gets involved almost seem selfish, to get back at those that drove him out of academia or some other reason internal. In the novel part of what gets him involved is that he sees that his students will be the ones that will be impacted in 30 years and he does not want that for them. I wish the movie made that clear, so it seemed he was doing it at least partly for them. Because then that love of his students, makes the ending hit even harder where he ends up.

Also, why did they change the design of the ship? Specifically how it transitions to spin gravity. Why did they make it so the gravity vector was different for spin gravity versus thrust gravity? I guess it made it easier for rocky to roll around, was that really it? I can’t think of a good engineering reason.

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Hoping to go see it this weekend. Loved the book.

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Loved the book. Heading out to see it in an hour.

Will return and read the review and add mine.

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Knowing zero about the book or story before this review, is the plot remotely believable?

To a layman, the story (science) in The Martian seemed feasible though noting we are not quite there yet. To think we could in any way do anything about a dying sun, other than flee Interstellar style, seems absurd.

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It’s “hard” science fiction, so it’s more grounded in reality than say Star Wars or something like that. Think of it more like Interstellar, though not quite as heavy on the subject matter.

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Small spoilers:

The actual plot involving the problem and the solution were relatively believable.

Having said that, you’ll have to suspend about as much disbelief as you would with any movie where aliens are contacted and figure out how to communicate with each other by Act 2.

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I saw it this afternoon and mostly enjoyed it.

This is the second movie that I’ve ever seen after reading the book (the first being Lord of the Rings). For me there were parts that dragged and felt unnecessary, but only because I already knew where they were going with it. That’s not an indictment on the movie, but rather just a piece I had to deal with from my perspective.

I thought they did a good job. It was acted well, directed well, and had great music and special effects. I also liked how they focused on the relationship piece of the story. There’s a lot more sciency stuff in the book, but to cram it into ACT 1 would have just made this another The Martian (same author).

When I had originally heard that this was going to star Ryan Gosling and wuld be directed by The Lego Batman guys, and wasn’t too sure how well it would come off, but I felt it had the right level of campiness keeping it fun, without making it cringy.

Interstellar and The Martian were over 10 years ago. This is probably the best space traveler sci-fi movie made since then.

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Saw it with my wife and daughter this weekend. We all really liked it.

I think I will read the book.

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Same here, only a few times I’ve seen a movie and wanted to read the book, this is one of them, great movie can’t wait to read the book.

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Saw the movie last weekend. The book did a good job explaining the scientific underpinnings of the dying sun problem (and solution), thereby making it seem believable, and the film naturally glazed over some of that hard science in the interest of moving the plot along.

My main criticism of the book is that the dialogue is almost painfully PG. Lots of gosh darnit and gee whiz, to the point that I often found myself thinking “JFC you’re alone in space trying to save the world, it’s ok to drop an F-bomb once in a while!” IMO the movie did a nice job replacing that with humor and campiness without resorting to foul language.

Given the limitations of a box office film, I thought they did a pretty good job deciding what to keep and what to cut. That said, the hard science in the book adds to the believability of the whole premise, and I felt they had to skip over some important character development and context to keep the film a reasonable length.

Overall I thought both were really good in different ways.

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Wife read the book and loved it so we saw it together. Didn’t really do it for me, but not a wasted trip to the theater. It made me appreciate how good The Martian was though, will probably rewatch that sometime soon, or read the book.

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Really the only scientific conceit that is outside of known science is the super cross sectionality of the astrophage. That little cheat of quantum physics allows the plot to happen. That is really the only unrealistic science or at least scientific leap, since maybe it could exist.

Now there are probably some unbelievable politics in terms of how the world comes together and how Ryland gets involved, but that sort of thing happens all the times in movies.

Same thing with the Marian where in reality no wind storm on mars would be that bad, because the air pressure is just so low. So some fudging is required to create the plot.

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FWIW, I thought the writing in the book was pretty terrible. I just liked the story.

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Weir is good at story telling and great at hard science for a general audience. He sucks at characters and dialog which is why his second book wasn’t nearly as good as his other two.

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I’ve read both books and saw both movies, Project Hail Mary, last night. I thought The Martian book was better than the movie and Project Hail Mary movie was better than the book.

I’ve rewatch The Martian many times and will probably do the same with Project Hail Mary.

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BTW, here’s some additional insight that may have been missed in the movie. Skip this if you’d rather just read the book.

1 - The reason Grace ends up going on the mission:

“Eva Stratt had secretly tested candidates for resistance to the coma drug required for the long journey. Grace had a rare genetic resistance that made him much more likely to survive the induced coma and wake up functional at Tau Ceti.”

So in a nut shell, it wasn’t the case that they couldn’t find another molecular biologist and train them. It’s that they literally didn’t exist as this genetic resistance required was very rare.

2 - Rocky

They hinted at this in the movie, but I didn’t think it was clear. Rocky’s planet has an extremely dense atmosphere, so much so that no sun light gets through to the surface. As a result, Rocky doesn’t have eyes and can’t see. His “vision” is highly evolved echo location. This is why he could hear Grace whisper (because he has excellent hearing), couldn’t see the numbers on the clock (they were flat), and he could see around corners.

This is also why despite being super smart engineers, they didn’t understand that radiation would be an issue with space travel, which is why his entire crew died. Obviously there’s a huge suspense of disbelief required given that they still managed to build a space ship that could fly to another solar system.

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This will probably get me sent to the Politics forum, but I wanted to share that the MAGA crowd is crowing how Project Hail Mary is successful due to being “anti-woke” and not including any woke messaging. Apparently the author Andy Weir stated he avoided any “woke messaging” and focused on telling an entertaining story. I would counter though that the world coming together to find a solution to the problem is pretty woke in my mind.