There’s a problem with the planet. There’s a solution in the stars. And the only way to find it is to send a small crew of astronauts to a faraway star system, uncover an intergalactic mystery and float around in a golden, tessellating room made of trippy, geometric shapes.
Yes, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is great. But this is actually Project Hail Mary, the new space-based competency-porn flick based on a book by Andy Weir, the author who brought you The Martian. And while it may seem like a cheap dunk to simply compare the newest deep space adventure film with the last iconic example, their similarities go far enough below the surface to warrant the comparison.
The Ryan Gosling-led Project Hail Mary does, in many ways, feel like a lowercase Interstellar: a fantastically good time at the movies, if not quite as insightful or far-reaching as that generational classic. It’s a dreamlike exploration of our responsibility toward other humans and what exactly defines our own humanity, told via the story of a man struggling to reconcile his perceived personal failings with the wonder and value inherent to all life, given its rarity in the immense coldness of space.
And it’s all interpreted through gigantic, star-lit set pieces, interspersed with some pulse-popping problem-solving by reluctant, endlessly resourceful geniuses.
In Hail Mary, that’s just done with more limited philosophic goals. Here, we simultaneously follow Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling) as he treads water as a wildly overqualified middle school science teacher, and also as he suddenly wakes up in a spaceship on an 11 years’ trip from Earth, lacking any memory of how he got there.
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That’s because, in what’s likely the film’s strongest stylistic selling point, Project Hail Mary is telling two stories at once. As we follow an amnesiac Grace struggling to remember exactly why and how he came to be Spaceship Hail Mary’s sole living passenger (upon waking, he discovers the corpses of two crewmates who did not survive hypersleep), we also get snippets of his memory, slowly revealing to the audience what exactly happened.
That story involves a complicated interplay of interpersonal and interstellar (get it?) issues. First, masses of a mysterious, cellular alien lifeform dubbed an Astrophage — literally “star eater” — have landed in our solar system. They’ve syphoned off our sun’s energy, leaving a dangling “Petrova line” between it and Venus that threatens to plunge the world into darkness and famine sometime in the next 30 years.
Then there are Grace’s own personal misfortunes. An inability to connect with others isolates him as he flounders along without friends or — as the imperious government agent and “save Earth” project manager Eva Stratt (Anatomy of a Fall‘s Sandra Hüller) remarks — even a dog.
Meanwhile, an inability to respect the contributions of his scientific peers has branded him a pariah. He’s latched so firmly onto a theory that water isn’t necessary for life that he has torpedoed his own career to champion it, still dubbing doubtful fellow scientists “staggering wastes of carbon.”
And as the rest of the movie goes on to explore, he’s also saddled with a serious inferiority complex around his bravery — or lack thereof. Without going too deeply into what happens and how, the ping-ponging script structures itself as an extended question-and-answer exercise: e.g. How exactly did this diffident schoolteacher, one who constantly speaks about his own lack of bravery, become humanity’s last hope, tasked with finding the secret to defeating Astrophage masses among the stars?
Bravery, aliens and rocks
The thematic answer, at least, is offered up early on, with a heroic astronaut blithely stating that the secret to bravery is simply finding someone to be brave for. It’s a simple enough conceit on which to hang a film, and Project Hail Mary does a generally good job of using the various disasters Grace faces to unpack it. That’s particularly true when Grace encounters Rocky (James Ortiz), the spider-like rock alien that, with the help of a complicated Arrival-like translation machine, becomes his friend and collaborator.
However — and this isn’t a huge issue — Rocky’s inclusion is also the clearest example of how Hail Mary, unique and original as it is, falls short of being as ambitious and fully formed as something like 2014’s Interstellar. However heartfelt and adorable the impish Rocky is as a character, he still suffers from what you could call “the Dobby problem.”
You see it, of course, in Harry Potter‘s grammar-ignorant, hairless-cat-resembling, anthropomorphized irritation machine, Dobby. But it also crops up in Shang Chi‘s Morris, Moana‘s HeiHei or The Mandalorian‘s Baby Yoda: a character whose design, bumbling naiveté and childlike temperament are so clearly designed to feel endearing that they quickly become annoying.
Especially as, the more screentime they get, the more it feels like we’re being primed for an oncoming invasion of plushies in the children’s toy aisle.
Similar to how the constant tragedy of 2025’s Hamnet caused some to label it “emotionally manipulative,” Rocky’s unflagging tendencies, like using “me am” instead of “I” or wrapping himself in tape measures like an excited toddler, start to feel more like a marketing gimmick than an organic character choice.
A few flaws
At the same time, some of original novellist Weir’s less perfect writing still shows itself, even through working with Drew Goddard in adapting the screenplay.
Weir is a science hobbyist and former programmer, and aspects of his novels occasionally feel like collections of cool ideas stitched together by a mere afterthought of a plot — as was the case with his previous book, adapted as 2015’s Matt Damon-led The Martian.
Project Hail Mary has vestiges of this issue. At the outset, its almost ethereal, surreally detached storytelling makes for a spellbindingly original experience. The camera frequently tilts nearly 180 degrees; shots are hazy and travel time. The image of the soft-spoken Grace is matched by softly-lit auroras, wide-open space vistas and a beautifully strange, hallucinatory pacing.
But soon, that same detached style starts to feel almost lackadaisical. One high-stakes, action-packed trip to a glowing alien planet can’t help but be compared to Interstellar’s wave planet scene; it’s just that in Hail Mary, it is harder to feel quite as white-knuckled when the plotting up until then has set you up to feel reserved.
Additionally, its somewhat slapdash series of cascading calamities feels again like an excuse to show off science-based solutions, rather than like interconnected storytelling beats servicing the characters’ journeys.
But these are just reasons why Project Hail Mary might fail to become a cinematic classic. They are in no way impediments for it to achieve its main goal: craft a capital-M movie that entertains from start to finish.
Gosling, as always, is the perfect balance of comedic and committed. The film’s themes of love and loyalty are strong enough to draw a sniffle from even the most stone-faced audience member. The soundtrack rivals Guardians of the Galaxy for a space-based retro good time — particularly the traditional farewell song Po Ataru, sang by the Turakina Maori Girls’ Choir at a particularly emotional farewell moment.
And most importantly, Project Hail Mary is what you want from a movie: It’s smart, and it’s fun. What more could you ask for?
